


The Theory of Parallel Universes For Dummies

by Hypocorismm



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison and Scout are together because Scallison is perfect, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, BAMF Stiles, Dark Stiles, F/M, Female Scott, Female Stiles Stilinski, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Multiple Scotts, Multiple Stiles, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-25 23:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypocorismm/pseuds/Hypocorismm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Scout wake up in a universe that isn't theirs. In fact, there are a pair of them already there, except the them that is there are male. Together, the four have to work together to try and put the girls back in their own universe, which proves to be more difficult than anyone thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a seemingly normal day for Stiles which, considering her life and peers, especially her peers, was rare. She woke up late, skipped showering for washing her hair in the kitchen sink, went to school and earned a detention from Mr. Harris, and went back home to do her homework before Scout appeared in her window frame, sheepish grin in place.

“Sorry I’m late, Mom wanted to talk about Allison before she went to work. I don’t even understand why she has to give me the safe sex talk. I can’t get pregnant, and neither can she,” Scout said, sliding into her spot beside Stiles on her bed with an angry sigh. “How’s Derek?”

“How on Earth would I know that?” Stiles stuttered, hoping the catch in her heartbeat wasn’t as loud as she thought it was.

“Oh, come on. I can _smell_ him all over you. You’ve been with him so much that his scent is not just on your clothes, but it’s in your skin. It’s a part of it now. Come on, I’m your best friend. You can tell me if you’re hooking up with Derek Hale.”

“Fine, you ridiculous girl, I’m hooking up with Derek Hale,” Stiles groaned. “Can we drop it? It’s not, it doesn’t, it’s not like it’s anything, it doesn’t mean anything. I have an itch, and Derek Hale just so happens to be able to scratch it.”

“Do you, you know, like him? Like, _like him_ like him?”

“I don’t like him, Scout. The guy is a stone wall with the emotional range of a teaspoon. He’s just the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re sleeping with him, Stiles. You have to like him in the smallest way, and not just because he’s hot.”

Stiles snorted and shook her head, pushing a wavy lock of annoying brown hair behind her ear.

“Whatever, can I just kick your ass at Call of Duty and we call it good?”

“Not this time, Stilinski.”

-&-

Stiles groaned as her alarm clock blared obnoxiously, rolling over Scout to smack at it. The snooze button had moved, or maybe Stiles was delirious from the amount of sleep she hadn’t gotten. They had stayed up way too late, one stupid fruitless battle right after another. Stiles was so angry that Scout had suddenly become _good_ at video games, when their entire friendship was spent Stiles beating Scout every time without fail. This was a turn of events that Stiles Stilinski was not okay with, and Scout McCall was going _down!_

“Jesus Christ, shut it the hell up before I smash it to bits,” Scout whined.

“I’m trying!” Stiles said, reaching to rip the cord from the wall out of desperation. Once quiet, the pair let out a grateful sigh and snuggled into the warmth of Stiles’ bed. It only lasts a few moments before Stiles’ phone is blaring her secondary _don’t-you-dare-go-back-to-sleep_ alarm. “We should get up.”

“Too warm.”

Stiles chuckled but rolled out of bed, feet hitting the cold floor and making her regret getting up immediately. But she knows from experience that one of them has to get up first, and it’s never Scout. It is never, ever Scout McCall, _ever_.

“Come on, Scout. Gotta face the day,” Stiles said, poking at Scout’s side.

“No, I’ll stay here. You go to school, get my notes.”

“Actually,” Stiles said, toeing the carpet nervously. “I need you to get my notes for me. Derek wanted me to come over and uhhh, hang out today.”

“Stiles, we have a test in chemistry!”

“I’ll make it up, come on, Scout. I’ve stood by and covered for you every time you and Allison fucked around during school! This one time, dude, please.”

Scout attempted a glare but nobody glared quite like Stiles’ fuck buddy, and the glare slipped off her adorable face. She was truly adorable too, with perfect, blemish free tanned skin, and big brown eyes, and rosy cheeks. Even her freaking bed head of wild brown curls were adorable, and Stiles hated it. How was her best friend this adorable while she got the short end of the femininity stick?

“Fine, but just this once! I will not be an alibi to your illegal sexual activities,” Scout said, swinging herself out of bed with the grace of a werewolf, which Stiles somehow still glanced over occasionally.

“You’re a goddess, Scout McCall. I’ll buy you a new bra from Victoria’s Secret so you can impress Allison! I’ll pave your walk with diamonds and shower you in riches! I’ll-”

“You’ll shut up before I rip your throat out with my teeth,” Scout said cheerily, flouncing out of the room to shower.

-&-

Stiles walked up the flights of steps to Derek’s flat, dressed in awkwardly male clothes that she didn’t really remember buying. She liked them, but she’d have really preferred to wear that skirt Derek liked, the one that showed off her legs and basically allowed Derek access to Stiles anywhere. She slid open the door and stepped in, smiling as she heard Derek moving around in the kitchen. She moved towards him, not bothering with stealth because she’s tried that, and unless Derek was dying, Stiles was loud enough that it didn’t matter much.

“Go home, Stiles,” Derek growled.

“Now, sweetheart, why on Earth would I do that when you invited me over?” Stiles teased, pulling herself up onto the counter as Derek whipped around to stare at her. Even if Derek had changed his mind, he would not look that angry. Unless Stiles had forgotten something, which was often. Had he actually invited her, or did he say something vague about wanting to see her that wasn’t actually an invitation? That had happened between them too many times, but it had always turned out fine. Fine being lots of touching and mutual orgasms.

“ _Who the fuck are you_? And what are you doing in my home?”

“Ha ha, Derek. Very funny. Geez, when you commit to a joke, you seriously commit. And Erica says you have no sense of humor. It’s there, just buried deep and extremely dried out.”

Derek stepped back, arms crossing over his chest.

“Whoa, you just stepped into defensive mode. How did you manage that? You were all growly and offended, and then, you’re scared of me? I’m 147 pounds soaking wet, Derek! You’re all solid packed muscle and claws.”

He didn’t say a word, only stared at Stiles like she was something foreign, something he’d never seen before.

“Will you just stop staring at me like that? I didn’t come over here to be a museum exhibit. In fact, I came over under the pretense of there being kisses and sex. If there’s not going to be either of those, I’m going to school and taking my chemistry test, like a good girl.”

“ _WHO. ARE. YOU.”_

“Stiles Stilinski,” she finally answered, angry that he was still sticking to this stupid bit. She liked the guy, but not that much. “You know, the girl whose throat you had your tongue down less than twenty four hours ago?”

“Stiles Stilinski is a teenage boy who is at school right now. Who the hell are you?”

“I told you, I am Stiles Stilinski, born to John and Claudia Stilinski and currently confused as to why you suddenly think I’m supposed to a boy. You literally had your head between my legs _yesterday!_ ”

“I HAVE NEVER SEEN YOU IN MY LIFE!”

Stiles stepped away, because Derek had been mad at her before but he’d never yelled that loudly or that angrily. Mostly he snipped sarcastic remarks, rolled his eyes, and slammed her into walls. There wasn’t a lot of yelling, just growling and fang flashing when she went too far.

Her phone picked that moment to signal an incoming call and she snatched it out of her pocket, answering without checking the caller ID.

“What?”

“We have a problem,” Scout said.

“Yeah, I figured that one out, Scout.”

-&-

Scout stood protectively by Stiles’ side in Derek’s loft, clutching Stiles’ arm. They were staring at two teenage boys that looked like they could be their brothers respectively.

“This is weird,” Stiles said, taking a step towards the two boys and being yanked backwards with a protective growl. “Seriously, Scout? You overprotective puppy!”

“I am not a puppy, and he smells like wolf,” Scout snarled around her fangs, jerking her chin towards her male doppelganger. “He smells like you, Stiles. They both do. It’s confusing.”

“Why did you call her Stiles?” Stiles’ own male doppelganger asked, his question directed at Scout. He looked more like Stiles than the other did Scout, but it was obvious they were related or something weird. Long lost siblings, maybe.

“Because that’s my name, asshole,” Stiles shot at him. They had the same upturned nose, and the same whiskey colored eyes, Stiles’ mother’s. They had the same moles dotting their face and necks, same thin build, same mousy brown hair. It was eerie, staring at a male version of herself.

“His name is Stiles,” the other boy said, pointing at Stiles’ counterpart.

“This is giving me a headache,” Stiles whined, pinching the bridge of her nose. “So if my name is Stiles Stilinski, and you also are Stiles Stilinski, what the fuck is going on?”

“Okay, so if you’re Stiles and she’s Stiles, who’s that?” the other boy asked, pointing at Scout.

“This is Scout McCall,” Stiles said. “And who are you?”

“Scott McCall.”

Stiles took a second to admire the McCalls, tanned skin with dark brown curls, dark brown puppy eyes, same uneven jawline, same cute freckle right below their lower lash line. Even Male Scout was gorgeous and how unfair was that?

“So we’ve got two Stileses, and two Scouts, Scotts. Fuck. We’ve got two McCalls, at least,” Stiles said, removing Scout’s claws from her arm. “Does that mean that our Derek is somewhere wandering Beacon Hills, and there are two hell-raising Ericas, because the world might burn with two Ericas in the same universe?”

“Stiles, shut up,” Scout muttered.

“What? Why? What’d I do?”

“Look at their faces,” Scout hissed, nudging Stiles in the side and nodding towards the three men across from them.

“There’s not two Ericas,” Male Stiles said.

“What? Why not? Is it just me and Scout, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said, lifting his chin to lock gazes with her. “But even if it isn’t, there’s not going to be two Ericas in this universe, because there isn’t one now.”

“Isn’t one now,” Stiles echoed, staring at Male Stiles blankly before the implications hit her, and she literally stumbled backwards. “Oh my god.”

“Hey, hey, easy there, Stilinski,” Scout soothed, a clawless hand wrapping comfortingly around her wrist. “Your Erica is safe. She’s at home, raising hell because you’re missing, and she can’t ogle you every chance she gets, even though Derek has had serious discussions with her, and she’s probably chasing Boyd and Isaac around the loft because she can.”

“But, this Erica, Scout, she’s gone, my, my Erica,” Stiles whimpered, turning away from the boys to face her best friend. Scout’s hands came to cup Stiles’ jaw, staring into her eyes.

“Do you need someone to pick you up Midol and The Breakfast Club, Stiles? Because I don’t care what universe we’re in, I’ll do it, and those three will suffer through it.”

“I’m still scared of how you know my cycle,” Stiles replied.

“You’re overemotional, even for you, and you just _smell_ like you’re PMSing. Besides, you and Allison are like, synced or something.”

“Fuck you,” Stiles said as a fond smile crossed her face. Her best friend was awesome, even when she was skipping out on her to go screw around with Allison. Stiles understood, actually, now that Derek was giving her attention.

“I’m creeped out,” Male Stiles decided loudly, breaking their little love fest apart. “She looks like me, sort of, and she has all the same Stilinski mannerisms, but she’s talking about cycles.”

“I look like you and act like you because _I am you._ We have the same parents and we grew up in the same house, and we’re the same person,except instead of gaining a Y-chromosome, I got two Xs. Chill the fuck out.”

“I like her,” Scott said with a chuckle. A protective growl reverberated in Scout’s chest, and was answered with a challenging duel growl from Scott and Other Derek.

“Stop it,” both Stileses commanded in unison before shooting each other a look.

“Should we go to Deaton?” Scott asked, tugging at his shirt. Scout did the same thing, when she wasn’t too busy protecting Stiles from things she didn’t need to be protected from, that is.

“Is there really any other choice?” Male Stiles replied. “We’ve got two of us, when there obviously shouldn’t be two of us. Derek looks just about as helpful as tits on a bull. So, we should go to Deaton.”

Stiles stamped down the urge to defend Derek, reminding herself that this was not her world, and that was not her Derek. She couldn’t take his hand to calm them both down, and she couldn’t just stare at him like she usually did until he cracked and gave in to what she wanted. He wasn’t hers, and she had to actively remember that. She just didn’t think it would be this hard. Being around Derek was easy, there was no thought process necessary to just slide into the seat beside him and kick a leg over his lap. Easy, like breathing.

“Do not call anyone,” Derek said, directing his orders to the two boys in front of him. “We don’t need this to be blown out of proportion.”

Stiles rolled her eyes and nudged Scout in the arm, catching her eye as they snickered quietly.

“And what’s so funny?” Male Stiles snapped.

“Just that, it’s an entirely different world here, apparently, but Derek is the same rigid asshole that he is in our world,” Stiles giggled.

“And rigid asshole is her term of endearment,” Scout added.

-&-

Stiles pulled herself up onto a counter in Deaton’s office out of habit, kicking her feet off the cabinets below, watching the men watch her. Scout picked absently at her nails, a trait Stiles was sure was Lydia or Allison trained because before the whole werewolf business, Scout had the worst set of nail beds in the history of nail beds. It was surprising considering that Melissa McCall had raised a daughter so blasé about some things.

“I feel like I’m an attraction at a sideshow circus,” Stiles finally announced, glaring at her counterpart while twirling at a piece of her hair obnoxiously. “You can stop staring. It doesn’t seem like I’m going anywhere. Being transported from one reality to another seems like a pretty permanent thing.”

Scout’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Oh, come on, Scout. You can’t tell me when you saw him,” Stiles gestured wildly at Scott, “that you didn’t at least toy with the idea of parallel universes! We’re obviously in a universe that runs parallel with our own but isn’t identical. I mean, obviously it’s not identical, because you and me, and apparently Erica, and you can’t tell me that Derek is the same either. There are subtle differences, but they’re still there.”

“Very good,” Deaton praised, and opened his mouth to continue building to Stiles’ theory. However, Stiles was on a roll and could not be derailed.

“See, that right there!” Stiles shouted, pointing frantically at the veterinarian. “Deaton hates proving me right!”

“That’s because you’re smug about it for weeks, Stiles. That’s not a Deaton thing. That’s an appropriate response to you.”

“You know, for a best friend, you’re actually really shitty. Remind me why I keep you around, again?” Stiles asked. “Never mind, don’t answer that. You’ll just be mean and I don’t need that right now with a male duplicate of myself staring at me like I’m something impossible.”

“That’s because you are impossible,” Male Stiles bit out. Stiles rolled her eyes.

“I’ve gathered that, genius! Before this morning, I wasn’t even aware that there _were_ parallel universes, beyond theory, and now I happen to have found myself transported from my own into another. So, yes, I have gathered that I am impossible. But how come no one is staring at Scout like this? I’m not the only phenomenon in this room!”

“Scout doesn’t draw attention to herself,” the Not Derek mentioned.

“I’m not afraid to hit an Alpha.”

“I’m not an Alpha,” Not Derek growled.

“Well, that’s awkward. Sorry about that. Who’s your Alpha, then?”

“I am,” Scott said, eyes flashing red. Scout and Stiles traded looks, Scout crossing her arms over her chest. “Scout isn’t an Alpha in your universe?”

“I am very much a Beta, and I like it that way, thank you very much,” Scout snipped, glaring at Scott like he had personally offended her.

“Can we catch up on the differences later?” Deaton asked. “I would like to know what you two remember before you arrived in our world.”

“We were marathoning Call of Duty at my house, and I kicked Scout’s ass, don’t look at me like that, I totally did, and we went to bed. We woke up here this morning in my bed, well, I guess, his bed.”

“And where were you two?” he asked, directing his question at Male Stiles and Scott.

“We were actually doing the same thing, but at Scott’s house,” Stiles answered. “I kicked Scott’s ass as well.”

Instinctively, Stiles and her counterpart reached out and high-fived. The universe didn’t collapse around them at the paradox of two Stileses touching, and nothing shocked either of them. They did however freeze after realizing and processing the action, staring accusingly at the other.

“Neither of you were messing with magic, then?” Deaton asked.

“Unless I was doing it in my sleep, no,” Stiles answered.

“You mess with magic in your sleep?” Male Stiles asked. She rolled her eyes.

“No, not in my sleep. Just when I’m awake. I like to be conscious when I fuck shit up. This,” she said with an ambiguous hand gesture, “is not my doing.”

“This time,” Scout scoffed.

“I’m going to kill you,” Stiles shot at her. “I will kill you in this universe and leave you here so no one can ever find your body. We don’t talk about the other times and you know it, Scout Victoria McCall.”

“You want to go there, Polish Keysmash?” Scout asked, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow. Allison had been one hell of an influence on Scout. Before the Bite, before Allison Argent, all you could convince Scout to wear were ill-fitting jeans and one-size too-big sweatshirts, sleeves pulled over her hands in an attempt to hide herself. She was a hot mess, her hair everywhere in its curly glory, not a hint of make up on her face more often than not. After Allison, it was all slimming outfits and glossy lips. Stiles liked any Scout the world had to offer, but this one was hot, like Erica Post-Bite or Cora Post Birth or Lydia Anytime. “Because in the world of ridiculous names, you take the cake, Stilinski.”

“Ladies!” Deaton snapped. “Now is not the time!”

Stiles had been a thorn in Deaton’s side for a year and a half, and never once had she irritated him enough for him to raise his voice. However, she reminded herself, this Deaton hadn’t experienced her particular brand of pain in the ass.

“Sorry,” Scout muttered, hanging her head. Stiles refused, fixing Deaton with a stare rivaling that of her own Derek Hale’s.

“What else could have caused this? Because I can’t actually _do_ magic, not like this Stiles, except for the trick with the mountain ash and I don’t really think that counts,” Male Stiles mentioned.

“You can do magic, it’s in our bones,” Stiles stated, cutting Deaton off again. “It’s just that apparently you didn’t follow up on the whole Spark thing. I got curious, Deaton showed me how to channel it, how to use it. But it definitely wasn’t me. I don’t know _how_ you could even do something like this, but I’d assume it’s a lot of power, the kind that you and I don’t possess naturally. We have a kind of base level magic, enough to create a circle of mountain ash without any left, or to make a candle light without a match or a lighter. We can’t do anything major, like say, move two human beings from one universe to a parallel one without some serious power. Power that we could only get with human sacrifices.” Stiles looked to Deaton who nodded, and she tried not to let that go to her head too much.

“Human sacrifices, seriously, again? Did your Jennifer survive or something?” Scott asked angrily.

“Jennifer, the English teacher slash crazy druid? No, she’s dead,” Stiles answered with a grin. She didn’t know what happened in this universe, but there was something in Derek’s past that he refused to acknowledge that lead to Jennifer’s uprising, and she’d tried to get to him to use him. Stiles had been more than glad to drive the nail in that bitch’s coffin.

“Try not to sound quite so psychopathic the next time you say that,” Scout said.

“Sorry, I just really hated her,” Stiles answered.

“So no Darach in your universe,” Male Stiles stated and then screwed up his face. “How is this my life? I should not be able to say that sentence, but I can because _this is my life._ ”

“What else could have caused this?” Derek asked. “Besides magic, and human sacrifices.”

Deaton stared at Stiles, eyebrows raised as if he were waiting on her.

“What? I have no idea. Unless you still believe _I_ did this, because there is no possible way that I did this. I just managed to make a flower bloom last week, I can’t shift universes.”

“I was actually waiting to see if you were going to interrupt me, again.”

“Sorry, my mouth moves without my permission sometimes, most times, actually. It’s a condition that I haven’t been able to stop so far, and I should actually. I’m sorry. I’ll stop now.”

Silence fell over the group as Stiles shut her mouth, which was almost physically impossible when she got going sometimes.

“Now, that’s better,” Deaton commented. “Now, we have no way of knowing who or what caused this, until we find some evidence that this isn’t just some freak accident.”

“Freak accident? Like, what? Our universe and your universe just happened to collide in a specific point where Scout and I just so happened to be which somehow popped us from one to the other? That sounds crazy, but you know, crazy enough to actually be close.”

“Stiles,” Scout growled. “Will you just let him talk?”

Scout was the last person Stiles had thought would tell her to shut up, because in all of their years as friends, Scout let Stiles talk, let Stiles work things out verbally, let her ramble and rant. There were moments, sure, when Scout wanted quiet when Stiles couldn’t offer that, but Scout generally gave her fair warning that Stiles was talking too much.

“Well, it’s apparent to me that my input is not needed, nor wanted, so I’m just gonna go,” Stiles muttered, shaking her head and walking out, slamming the exam door a bit harder than necessary. She didn’t even know why what Scout had said upset her quite so much. She was used to being shushed and scolded; it was a side effect of being her. But this had felt a bit like a betrayal. Scout should be on her side, defending her. Isn’t that what best friends were for?

She sank into the parking lot of the clinic and buried her head into her hands.

“Come on, Stilinski,” she mumbled to herself.

She felt so wrong for being here. Stiles, Male Stiles that is, was so much more put together than she was. He probably wasn’t a constant reminder to his father about the wife he’d lost, and maybe he hadn’t lied to the Sheriff about the werewolf problem. She regretted to that very day never telling him. Maybe, she thought, if she got home, she’d tell him about everything. Maybe she could even come forward about Derek. She snorted at that thought. Werewolves, yeah, sure, that was nothing. Telling her father that his little girl was fucking an Alpha werewolf who not only was at least six years older than her was also a wanted fugitive once, a fugitive that she had blamed. That would go over well, she was sure.

The door to the clinic opened and shut behind her.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Scout. Go back inside.”

“I’m not Scout,” the voice said. Stiles groaned.

“I don’t want to talk to you, either,” she spat, turning to look at Male Stiles. He had his hands stuffed into his pockets and his head ducked down. “What do you even want? You gonna tell me I talk too much, or I overreacted?”

“Nah, they were kind of being assholes,” he said, dropping onto the curb beside her. He scratched at the back of his neck. “I think it’s cool that you pursued the whole magic thing. I never even thought that I could manage something more.”

“I wanted to feel like I wasn’t useless, but if I did cause this, I’m ready to go back to being a meek damsel in distress,” Stiles said.

“No, you’re not.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you’re me, and I would never go back to being a damsel if I could use magic. I couldn’t. After Gerard, and almost losing my dad, I couldn’t. Not if I knew I could help.”

“You changed your mind about me really quick,” Stiles commented. He chuckled with a nonchalant shrug. “You were all hostile to me in there, like you thought I was fucking with you or something.”

“No, nothing like that. I just, you look so much like Mom, and it threw me off. I knew who you were the second I saw you, I mean, you’re a carbon copy of her, and I didn’t know how to react. My natural reaction to things like that is to be an asshole,” he explained.

“Mine too,” she laughed.

“Mom would hate that,” he said.

She nodded and said, “she always preached be nice to everyone, give everyone a chance. Everyone is fighting a hard battle, and you have to help them through it by not making it any worse.”

“She was the nicest person I’ve ever met. She cared about everyone, everything. I’ve never met someone more compassionate.”

“Not even Scott.”

“Scout, either.”

Stiles sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. He had broader shoulders than she did, much more like the Sheriff’s than Claudia’s.

“It’s overwhelming,” he said, resting his cheek against her hair. “Werewolves, sure, we can handle that. Kanimas, no problem!”

“Crazy werewolf hunters who lock us in the basement of his house and beat us to make us talk, practically nothing,” she chimed in.

“Exactly. Hell, we even beat the Alpha pack, _and_ the Darach.”

“I really, really hated that bitch. She kept trying to sleep with my not-boyfriend,” Stiles seethed quietly.

“She tried to sacrifice my father,” Male Stiles agreed.

“She was a bitch.”

“Mmm,” he hummed. “The point is, we can face anything. We have faced anything. But this is overwhelming. You are proof that there are so many different worlds out there that are just slightly different from my own. There’s probably a universe where our mom lived. I’m getting off topic. They expect us to adapt instantly, and when we don’t, they get annoyed. Or at least, that’s what Derek does.”

“Scout has never treated me like that. Not so harshly, anyway. She’s always been on my team, and I feel so betrayed, and it’s so stupid, I know.”

“No, it’s not. You’re an entire universe from home, and Scout is the only one you know, the only one you can trust. I’d feel the same if Scott did that to me.”

“I shouldn’t have just stormed out like that,” Stiles said.

“Maybe, but it’s most likely fine. There’s nothing for us to do but to wait at this point, anyway.”


	2. Chapter 2

Wait, they did. Scott and Male Stiles went to their respective homes at the end of a long night of Deaton making the five of them pour over dry texts about Hindu mythology and special differentials, and Derek even had to read _One Thousand and One Nights_.

“Where the hell are we supposed to go?” Stiles asked crossing her arms over her chest as the two boys pulled themselves into Male Stiles’ Jeep, which Stiles had driven here from Derek’s loft. Derek himself was already starting the engine of his Pack Mom Toyota.

“I don’t know, but you’re not staying with me,” Scott said. “You look too much like Mom for it to be safe at my house.”

“Same here,” Male Stiles said with an apologetic grimace.

“Can’t you just explain that we’re you?” Scout asked, rubbing her arms. It was already getting colder and the sun was still setting. “Mom would be okay with it!”

“You want us to tell our single parents that their children from a different universe are in this universe? You want us to tell them that they have daughters that they won’t ever have? You want to meet them so you can make them get attached and then you leave, so it’s a reminder that they never had the chance to make a big family?” Scott shot back. Scout’s head hung down and Stiles had to bite her tongue from the retort that wanted to come out.

“Where do you suggest we go, then? Because if you haven’t noticed, we aren’t exactly from around here,” Stiles asked, hooking her arm over Scout’s shoulders and pulling her in. They both shook minutely, ignoring how cold it was getting outside.

“Derek might le-” Male Stiles started but his words were lost as Derek peeled away from the curb, speeding down the street. “Never mind.”

“We’ll find a place,” Scout decided, leaning into Stiles. “Even if we have to sleep in the school, we’ll find a place.”

-&-

“I just want to go home,” Scout said, trudging up the driveway to the old Hale house.

“I know, baby,” Stiles sighed. She liked Male Stiles, he was feisty and sassy just like her, but she just wanted to curl up in her own bed in an old Beacon Hills Police Academy crewneck that she stole from the Sheriff and text Derek until she fell asleep. However, that’s not how her life worked. She had to seek shelter in a burned shell of a building in clothes that weren’t hers and pretend like she wasn’t freaking out inside because Scout was freaking out inside too. “We’ll find a way home. I promise. I’ll do anything.”

They found their way into a room upstairs with the least amount of holes and breezes and hunkered down in the corner, folded into one another. While Scout ran warmer than Stiles did, her warmth did nothing to protect them against the chilled night air whipping through the house.

“Why do you think this happened?” Scout asked, her hair tickling Stiles’ cheeks as she tucked herself deeper into the beta’s chest.

“I dunno. It could be just what Deaton said, a freak accident.”

“You don’t believe that,” Scout mumbled.

“No, I don’t. I think something’s happening. Something bigger than we can imagine. Something bad.”

“That’s great. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“I’m sorry.”

Scout hummed but said nothing else, tucking herself tighter around Stiles. Stiles said nothing in return, listening to the sounds of the old house creak and Scout’s breathing as it evened out. She listened to the sounds of the forest around them, crickets chirping in the grass and owls hooting from tree branches. She was grateful that she didn’t have super hearing like Scout did, or else she would never focus on anything.

Eventually, she fell asleep.

She didn’t stay that way for long. Not even an hour later, Stiles was woken by Scout’s shivers and chattering teeth. Stiles sniffled, and tried to hold in her sneeze before it forced its way out of her anyway, right into Scout’s neck.

“That’s disgusting,” Scout murmured.

“We need to get some place warm, before I get hypothermia. Come on, wake up. Scout, come on. We’re going,” Stiles yawned, poking Scout’s sides.

“You sneezed on me.”

“It’s freezing. Come on.”

“You didn’t sneeze because you’re freezing,” Scout groaned.

“Whatever. Come on. We’re going somewhere warm.”

“Where? We can’t go home.”

“No, but I know a place that’s warm. Don’t you want to be warm?”

“Yeah,” Scout nodded. Stiles stood, immediately regretting it. It was so cold, especially without her space heater.

“Come along, then. We’ll be warm, and I’ll get us something to eat. And in the morning, we’ll find a way home. Doesn’t that sound awesome?”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“Good. Come on, baby.”

“You’re talking to me like I’m a child.”

“Stop acting like a child, then.”

“So demanding.”

“Yepp, that’s me. Polish Keysmash Hyphen Demanding Stilinski,” Stiles agreed, tugging on Scout’s hand. “Now, come on, we’re gonna go crash somewhere with full tummies and blankets wrapped around us like a real pack pile.”

“Okay,” Scout conceded, following Stiles onto her feet. Stiles led the pair out of the shelter of the house and together they stumbled out of the Preserve and into town. “Where are you taking us, Stilinski?”

“Someplace safe,” Stiles assured her, pushing open the lobby doors to Derek’s apartment building. “Trust me.”

“This is Derek’s place,” Scout commented. “He kind of drove off earlier. I don’t think we’re welcome, Stiles.”

“Welcome or not, we’re staying here. I’m not giving him much of a choice. He’s going to let us stay, and he’s going to fucking deal with it,” Stiles said, stopping on the stairwell to sneeze. “I swear if I get hypothermia because those assholes were too proud to let us stay with them, I’m going to kill them all.”

“How do you know he won’t just kill us in his sleep? This Derek seems a lot more unforgiving than ours. He looks like a serial killer.”

“I just have a feeling, okay?”

“Just because you tamed our Derek with sex doesn’t mean you tamed them all, or can tame them all. Let’s just go stay at the school.”

“It’s a school day,” Stiles reminded her, reaching Derek’s door. She brushed her fingers along the ridge at the top of the door and found the spare key. She unlocked the door and slid it open, easing it over the squeaking rail. She guided Scout inside, pocketing the key just in case, and slid the door shut, locking it behind them.

“There are extra blankets in that closet right there,” Stiles pointed, heading for the kitchen. “Pile a couple on the couch, and get comfortable. I’ll be right back with something warm to eat.”

“You’re gonna get us in trouble,” Scout whispered, heading towards the closet. “He’s gonna come out here, find us helping ourselves to our shit, and he’s going to decapitate us.”

“He is not, just get the blankets and stop worrying.”

Scout pouted, but quickly collected the thickest blankets in Derek’s closet while Stiles set about making them oatmeal from packets in his cupboard. She heard Derek moving in the bedroom but made no move to quiet her movements. If Derek had a problem with her being there, he was going to have to physically remove her from the loft, and he was going to have to change his locks. Her Derek would never let her sleep on the cold floor of a burnt out home, and she was holding this Derek to that promise.

The water boiled in the mug in the microwave and Stiles carefully distributed the water into the two bowls of powdered instant oatmeal. She stirred them both and balanced the bowls as she joined Scout on the couch, now a nest of blankets and pillows.

“Now, let’s get warm, and get some sleep.”

“Derek’s awake,” Scout warned.

“Yeah, what’s the big bad wolf gonna do to us?”

“Tear our throats out, with his teeth? Kill us in our sleep? Defenestrate us?” Scout offered, practically moaning around the first bite of her oatmeal.

“Defenestrate, nice word. Been studying?”

“SAT word.”

“Defenestrate was an SAT word?”

“Shut up.”

Stiles chuckled, and scraped around the edges of her bowl, listening to Derek upstairs.

“He might actually kill us, you know,” Scout said.

“You keep saying that, but he can hear us down here, and he still hasn’t come storming down and ripped us to shreds with his little wolf claws. Besides, in this universe, Derek seems to have no more power than you do, Scout. You could take him.”

“And you?”

“I’ll just cower in the corner and make myself as insignificant as possible until you eliminate any threat on my life. Or, I’ll just seduce him into submission like I did my Derek.”

Scout smiled, setting her bowl on the coffee table and cuddling into the blankets. Stiles polished off her own oatmeal and settled into the nest with Scout, leaning against the space heater. She dozed easily, wrapped in warmth and comfort.

-&-

“Don’t make a habit of this,” Derek growled the next morning when he found them curled into each other. He didn’t rip their throats out, and he didn’t throw them out the window in a fit of rage.

“Yeah, I’ll just sleep in the forest and catch hypotheria every night,” Stiles snapped at his retreating back.

He drove them to Deaton’s clinic after Stiles made them all an awkward breakfast, eggs and pancakes drizzled in cheap syrup. They barely spoke, and Derek had stabbed his breakfast like it had personally offended him. She pushed Scout ahead of her as they entered into the clinic’s office, putting herself between Scout and Derek.

“Where are the other two?” Scout asked, dropping into a chair across from the desk.

“School, it’s Thursday,” Stiles answered, falling into her own seat. Derek took up a permanent shadow in the corner while Deaton shuffled his papers around. “Where we should be, actually, if you hadn’t noticed. The Sheriff and Melissa are going to kill us when we get home.”

Scout groaned.

“They’re probably out of their mind right now.”

“Probably. Let’s just, you know, focus on getting us home. Whatcha got for us, Doc?”

“Reading,” Deaton said, handing each of them a stack of thick photocopied documents. “Settle in, it’s gonna be a long day.”

Stiles shifted in her seat and sighed, preparing herself for the long day ahead of her. The script of her stack was tiny, handwritten and very sloppy, almost illegible. While she was a speedy reader most the time, when her brain allowed it, it took her almost an hour to decipher one page.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Scout groaned, the sound more wolfish than Stiles had heard in a while.

“That’s not true, I now know that this has nothing to do with getting us home,” Stiles retorted, shaking her pages at Scout. “I also have figured out that this page also has nothing to do with neither spells nor parallel universes. This chicken scratch _actually_ documents the acid trip of some ancient voodoo master where she thinks she’s found her doppelganger, however I think it’s just her staring in a mirror. It’s quite interesting, if you like that sort of thing.”

“Acid trip? You get an acid trip, and I get the theory of parallel universes, for dummies,” Scout chuckled.

“I think I might enjoy the theory of parallel universes, dummy edition,” Stiles replied. “Want to trade?”

“No one is trading anything. I assigned you specific passages, and you will sit there and read them,” Deaton said from behind them. Stiles hadn’t even been aware that the veterinarian was even in the room.  

“At least you don’t have to read about what some people have done to reach parallel universes,” Derek finally said. “It’s revolting the amount of times people have thought rhinoceros shit has magical properties.”

“You know, acid trip doesn’t sound quite so bad anymore,” Stiles stated, moving onto the next page of equally tiny and illegible handwriting.

Hours later, and three pages of useless nonsense later, Deaton swept back in.

“How is the reading going?”

The trio groaned in unison.

“I can’t read any more, Doc. I might blow my brains out if I have to read any more about Catrin, the voodoo dumbass who thought her reflection was the doorway to a parallel universe,” Stiles whined. “Please, send me to do something else before I’m forced to defenestrate myself.”

“I don’t think it’s defenestration if it’s self-inflicted,” Scout pointed out.

“I would rather read about self-defenestration than about this,” Stiles stated, shaking her papers at Deaton for emphasis.

“You and our Mr. Stilinski are going to the library,” Deaton said as the other pair strolled in, book bags on their shoulders. “Scott, you and Scout are going to help me with the dogs. Derek, you are free to go home.”

“What?” all four of them chorused, outraged.

“Derek has his own obligations, and I’m sure he does not want to spend his afternoon with teenagers,” Deaton excused.

“Shouldn’t have made a pack out of teenagers,” Male Stiles muttered, receiving a slap to the back of the head from Derek as he moved towards the door.

“See you at home, honey,” Stiles called over her shoulder as the door swung shut.

“You stayed with Derek last night?” Male Stiles asked.

“Well, _with_ Derek would suggest I asked permission, which we didn’t. But I don’t care how hard it would be to explain to Dad or Melissa, whether or not Derek gives us permission; I am not sleeping in the forest again. Just because we’re not convenient doesn’t mean we get to be treated like animals.”

“Yes, well,” Deaton said.

“Stiles,” Scout murmured, grabbing her hand. Stiles yanked it back.

“No, I am serious. We’re not supposed to be here, I get it. However, until we get home, we deserve to be treated like humans and not left to sleep on a cold floor in a burnt house like we’re some unwanted pet that won’t stop following you home!”

“Stiles,” Deaton cut in. “Both of you should head to the library, get as much studying up on the subject as you can before it closes. Here are some titles you should look into, one for you Miss Stilinski, and one for you. Now, go on. Sort out sleeping situations later. If you search hard enough, you won’t have to sort it out at all.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Stiles muttered to Scout who bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from laughing. “Let’s go and spend some quality time together, Stilinski.”

-&-

Stiles piled the table with her list of books, thick ancient volumes from deep within the Beacon Hills Memorial Library’s stacks. Male Stiles also piled book upon book on his side of the table with his own list, although they were thin volumes from the theoretical science section.

“Well, this is going to be loads of fun,” Stiles commented with a roll of her eyes.

“I think he sent us to the library because he was so annoyed by you,” Male Stiles said, plopping into a hard wooden chair.   

"You know,” Stiles said, taking her own seat, “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

They cracked open their first book and started, skimming and searching through the indexes. Her books were considerably less organized than his, and his reading seemed lighter.

“I might just kill myself and save you the trouble of having to find me a way home,” Stiles finally said. “At least then, Melissa won’t kill me for getting her daughter in trouble again.”

“Yeah, Melissa totally would,” Male Stiles laughed. “Dad would, too.”

“I haven’t even decided what I’m going to tell my dad yet,” Stiles said shaking her head. “We went on a road trip without telling anyone because school was too stressful, and we were just being stupid kids. Something. I dunno.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“About werewolves? No. Why? Did you tell yours?”

“Well, I tried, but he didn’t believe me. The Darach, actually, kidnapped him, and then Melissa and Chris explained. We’re a lot closer now that I stopped lying to him,” he said. “Can I ask how’d your Erica survive? Ours, her and Boyd were taken by the Alpha pack and she fought back against Kali and, well, she was killed.”

“Erica and Boyd were never captured,” she explained. “They tried, I guess, I don’t really have all the details. Erica and Boyd were going to find another pack, but Derek somehow convinced them not to go. They weren’t around for the longest time, collecting their life or whatever, getting their shit together before they came back to the pack. They weren’t around for most of the Darach issue or the Alpha problem. When Cora escaped, though, Erica came around, opened up and toned it down. Boyd took a little bit more convincing, Isaac helped with that one.”

“That’s completely different than what happened here,” Male Stiles said.

“Oh?”

He went on to tell her the story of his past year, how Derek had gotten with Jennifer, and how Erica and Boyd had died, how they had saved Cora, how Jennifer had tried to use Melissa, Chris, and the Sheriff to complete her sacrificial power play, how Scott had risen to the occasion to become the True Alpha after Derek had given his Alpha power away to save Cora’s life, and the list of differences grew and grew. Stiles had never thought her life easy, she’d never even dreamed of it, but compared to this Stiles, her life was a walk in the park.

“Well, that’s excessive,” Stiles said, flipping through her third book. The second book had had nothing to do with anything useful and had been dumped into the discard pile, growing steadily as time wore on.

“Are you really with Derek in your universe?” Stiles asked, shutting his fourth book and adding it to the pile. “This is getting us nowhere. None of this is helpful.”

“Yeah, sort of. It’s more of a mutual, sexually beneficial thing than an actual relationship, because he’s still pretty non-communicative, like yours, and he doesn’t actually acknowledge anything we’re doing outside of when we’re doing it.”

“That actually sounds perfect,” Male Stiles laughed, cracking open his next book.

“Ye- Hold up. I think,” Stiles muttered, skimming her finger over the passage. “I think I might have found something. Come here.”

Male Stiles rounded the table and stood beside her chair, reading over her shoulder.

“This, this could do it,” she said, excitedly reading. Home was looming on the possible horizon and she could be there soon. “Deaton may have to tweak it, but there’s no reason we couldn’t make it work. It’s right around my power range, anyway. We’d have to pick up some supplies from the local Wiccan shop.”

“That’s all great, but there’s a catch, right here,” he said, reading on to the next paragraph. “The caster doesn’t return with the rest of the group. The caster can’t go home.”

Stiles deflated, home fading away like a mirage.

“Hey Stiles,” Danny said, appearing at her elbow.”

“Hey,” they chorused and Male Stiles shot her a look.

“Hey Danny. What’s up?”

“Nothing much, just getting some research for our history project,” Danny said, making a face while he gestured with his armload of books. “You got over here really quick, actually. Especially because you look like you’ve settled in.”

“I don’t have a single clue as to what you mean, Danny.”

“I just saw you over at the lacrosse field?” Danny said questioningly, eyebrows furrowing. “Although, it looks like I’m seeing double now. Do you have a sister?”

“This is my cousin, actually. Miguelita.”

“Miguelita, like your cousin, Miguel?” Danny asked, suspiciously eyeing the both of them.

“His sister, actually,” Male Stiles said.

“Right. Well. I should be going. See you around, Stiles. Miguelita.”

Danny walked away, sidling up alongside the checkout desk while Stiles reached out and smacked Male Stiles hard in the stomach.

“Miguelita? That was the best you could come up with?” she hissed.

“That isn’t the point,” he wheezed. “He saw us, me at the lacrosse field. What if when you came over, another me, you, us came over too? We should go check it out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long, guys! I just couldn't get the dynamics between the Stileses right. Stileses? Stili?   
> If you want to be updated with repetitive Teen Wolf posts about how it's kicked everyone in the feels, and have first glimpses of things I am working on (read: amnesia!Stiles Stisaac au, coffeeshop stisaac au), then you can follow me on my tumblr, packyourbagsrightnow.tumblr.com
> 
> Until then,  
> DFTBA


	3. Chapter 3

Male Stiles’ phone started ringing halfway to the field, a familiar ringtone that Stiles knew well. The Sheriff was calling.

“Shit, I was supposed to be home to make dinner for Dad like an hour ago, before he goes to work. Shit, shit. What do I do? I can’t just skip out on you,” he groaned, staring between his phone resting on the dashboard and at the road. Stiles grabbed the phone and answered it with a giggly greeting, sounding like Allison and Scout when they were hideously and shamelessly flirting in public.

“Who is this?” the Sheriff said.

“Hi, Sheriff Stilinski,” Stiles said, keeping her voice light and deciding to throw in a Southern accent to cover the similarity in her tone of voice to his son’s. “I’m Tausha, Tausha McMahon. I’m new to the area, so you probably don’t know who I am. I got a bit lost on my way back home, and Stiles here was just driving me home.”

“Oh,” came his reply.

“And well, my house is pretty far out there. He should be home soon. I’m sorry for keeping him.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” the Sheriff conceded. She had him wrapped around her finger, just like she had for her whole life. The lying and deceiving hadn’t won her any favors, sure, but when it came right down to it, Stiles was a Daddy’s girl, and the Sheriff knew it. “I’m glad you’re getting home safe.”

“That’s mighty kind of you, Sheriff Stilinski. You raised a very sweet gentleman, you should be proud,” she said as Stiles pulled into the parking lot beside the lacrosse field.

“Thank you, Tausha. Tell Stiles not to worry about dinner tonight.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “He told me you had a double shift to start soon, and he wouldn’t see you for a bit. I wouldn’t want to keep him from that.”

“I’m sure I’ll see him around.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“I am. Bye, Tausha.”

“Goodbye, Sheriff.” She hung up and slid the phone back onto the dashboard. “You are off the hook, my darling. A little bit of Southern belle, and Stilinski charm works wonders on the Sheriff.”

“How did you come up with that so fast?”

“I still lie to my father, remember? Thinking quick on my feet is what I do, you know, besides fight evil supernatural assholes who want to destroy the world, or my best friend, and abuse my behavioral medication. Also, on top of that, I’m sleeping with a guy who is six or seven years older than me, a guy who I had arrested for the murder of his sister. I am a pro at lying, and deceiving our old man.”

“I wish you could meet him,” he said in response. “My dad, that is. My version. He’s one hell of a guy.”

“Yeah, I bet. Maybe once I get home, I’ll set everything straight.”

Stiles shrugged and looked up, out at the darkening sky that met the tree tops, over the school’s grounds to the tree line.

“Hey, do you see that?”

They squinted, as if that would make anything clearer.

“Is that a fire?” Stiles asked.

“Let’s go check it out.”

They climbed out, and he grabbed an aluminum bat from the backseat. She didn’t question, because bats were useful, and the Sheriff had always said metal bats were better than wood.

They crossed the field side by side, neither daring to say anything. Fires were ominous by themselves, but adding in the factor that Danny had seen Male Stiles, or another version of him on the fields was creepy.

The fire was just inside the trees, lighting up a slight pocket of empty ground.

“Hey, if we die tonight, I’m glad I’m hot as a girl,” Male Stiles said, catching her eye.

“And I’m glad I’m kind of okay looking as a guy,” she replied with a cheeky smile, stepping into the trees and heading towards their possible, almost certain doom.

-&-

The first thing Stiles saw, and it was possibly the only thing she really saw for a few minutes, was Scout tied to a tree, head lolled to the side against Scott’s. Her arms are pulled behind her at an awkward angle, and her hair fell over her pale face.

“Scout,” she whispered, staring at her best friend.

“What the hell are you?” the Stiles to her right asked, snapping her out of her daze. She focused on the shadowed figure before them, his head bent over as he turned to them. He was Stiles, Male and identical to the one of her right, save for one aspect. His skin was covered in covered in black, pulsing tattoos, thick lines that swirled around his arms and across his bare chest. His eyes burned bright with anger as he stared back at the pair of Stileses.

“Ahh, they finally decided to join the party,” he said, his voice scratchier and uglier than the Stiles’ beside her. He reached out, hand open as a swirl of black pulsed against his palm, and he swung his arm away, Male Stiles swinging with it, slamming hard against a tree and dropping to the ground. “Now that is better, isn’t it, Stiles?”

“Who are you?”

“That’s a stupid question. You know the answer to that. Try again.”

“Alright,” she grumbled, stepping closer to the tattooed Stiles. “Who’d you kill to get here?”

“That is a much better question, good girl.”

Stiles glared and snarled, “Do not call me good girl.”

He hummed. “To answer your question, Stiles, I killed everyone. Isaac, Cora, Erica, Boyd, Lydia, Allison, Peter,” he listed. He paused and caught her eye, staring directly into her identical whiskey colored eyes. “Your precious Derek, and Scott.”

“You couldn’t. There is not a single Stiles in any single universe that would harm Scott.”

“Oh, but I did. He knew what he was giving his life for. You see, when a Stiles goes dark, so does Scott. Scott gave his life so I may destroy the Originals.”

“The Originals,” Stiles repeated. “Why do you want to kill them?”

“Because,” he chuckled, “they have what we have always wanted.”

“Their lives suck, if you hadn’t noticed. Why would you want that?”

“The Originals are the most powerful versions of us, Stiles. He will always be more powerful than you, or me,” he said, gesturing to the blacked out Stiles on the ground. “We have searched since we discovered the incantation to transport ourselves from one world to another, searching for the right spell to take the power from an identical copy of you and place it within yourself. We searched, and when we found it, Scott gave his life for this. He allowed me to take his life and give myself the power to bring me here, to take the Original’s power. Any Scott would do that.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. My Scout, his Scott, they would never give themselves just for more people to be killed.”

“Would Scout not sacrifice herself for your benefit?”

Stiles’ jaw snapped shut.

“That’s where I am right, Ms. Stilinski,” he continued.

“Why are you even telling me this?”

“You are the part that I did not count on. You are the mistake, and I hate making mistakes,” he pointed, jabbing her in the chest. “You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to stay in your own damn world but your goddamn universe had to be directly in between mine and this one. You, Stiles, are the bane of my existence, and you fucked up my plan.”

“Which was? What? Slip in undetected, kill Stiles and slip back into your own world?” she spat, shoving him back away from her.

“Slip back into my own world? Why would I do that? Stiles has a nice cozy ligr here all ready for me to assume my position as the Original. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, was to be the Original. I was meant for this. Scott gave his life for this. He couldn’t come with me, but oh, God, he would be proud of me. Here we are, Scott!” he yelled. “We made it.”

“What makes you think you could just take over Stiles’ life like no one would notice?”

“No one cares about Stiles Stilinski, darling. No one cares.”

“That’s where you’re wrong again, because our pack cares about us. Our packs, our father, they all care. You cannot tell me that no one cares about Stiles Stilinski when there are Scott McCalls in the world, and John Stilinskis. You cannot tell me that no one cares when our packs are alive and fighting for us.”

“There’s no one here, Stiles. Look around! _No one_ is fighting for you.”

“Do you know how quickly that could change?” she snarled, tucking her hands into her pockets. She’d gotten good at pocket texting, especially Derek. She typed with the least amount of movements possible, shaking her head and looking anywhere but at the Stiles in front of her.

Stiles, but not Stiles. A twisted, warped Stiles. A Stiles who thought of nothing but power, who gave up everything just to get a touch more power. A Stiles so weighed down by this greedy black bitterness that he no longer could see the brightness of the pack. A Stiles, but not. Dark Stiles.

“Calling in the cavalry, are we? Who’s going to come get me? Your big bad wolf? He’s not even an Alpha in this world, is he? What is he gonna do now? Bark at me? He’s weak, useless, barely worth a thought. He hardly cares about this ragtag group of misfits he calls a pack anymore, not since Cora blew into town.”

“Derek Hale is a lot of things, Stiles Stilinski,” she said. “But he isn’t weak, and he will never stop caring about his pack.”

“He’s not a hero, though. Is he?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But hero would suggest that there’s a supervillian, and you don’t quite fit the part. Crazed lunatic, maybe, but supervillian? Hardly. However, spilling your plan to me like a stereotypical baddie from a Bond film? I’ll give you props for that, you made stopping you so much easier.”

He snarled and backed away, his snarls changing to growling chants. Stiles couldn’t understand what he was saying, Latin not being one of her strong suits, but she could recognize a spell when she heard one. Even if she couldn’t the massive headache forming at the base of her skull would’ve been a good indication that something wicked this way comes.

The supernova in her brain swelled, moving out and in, taking over the entirety of her head and most of her neck. It nestled itself deep within her mind, grabbing at all of her senses and shaking them harshly until she fell to her knees in disorientation. She gripped the ground beneath her, hoping for some stability, but felt nothing. She tried to take a deep breath to clear her head, but could find no air. Her body was shutting down, and the only thing she could do to stop it was to chant her own spell back at him.

Words fell from her mouth without her thinking them, the power she’d worked months at to discover rising within her to meet the occasion, expanding and lashing out at the supernova burning bright behind her eyes. She could breathe again, if only briefly before the migraine snatched that away again. She allowed the power from the Earth to rise through her, to use her and fix what had been broken. She believed it could work, the words flowing freely, in Latin.

 And suddenly, there was nothing. It was black. There was nothing around her, and she was free falling with nothing to grab onto and nothing to brace her fall. She fell. And she fell. And she kept falling.

And when she hit the ground, all she could do was cry.

-&-

She cracked open her eyes, groaning at the light flooding in through the small space.

“Oh, hey, she’s coming around,” someone muttered, a cool hand pressing to her forehead. “Her fever’s even gone down.”

“Wha’s gon’ on?” she slurred, her tongue fuzzy inside her desert mouth. Her eyes adjusted to the light and she glanced around lazily. Stiles, the Original Stiles sat at her bedside, soft smile on his face and a glass of water in his hand. She made grabby hands at him and he handed over the glass. She eased her way up onto her elbows and gulped down the water.

“Whoa, easy there. You’ll make yourself sick that way,” he said, easing the glass away from her. “You were very brave back there, you know that? Scott told me what you did, said that you fought him while he was casting some sort of spell on you.”

“He was trying,” she coughed, “he was trying to collapse my head or something. I did what any person would do to preserve their life, I fought like hell.”

“You were brave, braver than I would’ve been. Now take the compliment and shut up.”

She chuckled hoarsely.

“Yeah, okay, thanks, Stiles.”

“That is the first time you have called me Stiles since you got here,” he commented.

“He made me realize something,” she admitted. “Besides, you came first, right? If anyone gets to be called Stiles, it’s you.”

He shook his head.

“We’re both Stiles. Stileses are we,” he replied. “Stileses? What is the pluralized form of Stiles anyway? Like, Scott is Scotts, and Derek is Dereks. But Stiles? Stileses? Stili? Stileseseses?”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up,” Stiles chuckled.

Original Stiles nodded, “Yeah. Sorry.”

“What even happened? The last thing I remember was Dark Stiles trying to explode my head,” she asked.

“Well, according to Deaton, the combined incanting that was happening between the two of you built up so much power that it knocked you both out, and had a side effect of latching on to your subconscious and pulling whoever was you were thinking about into this world.”

“I did what?”

He nodded, “That’s what Deaton thinks anyway. You pulled your pack into this universe, which is awesome at the same time as extremely inconvenient because we don’t know how to get you and Scout home let alone your entire pack, but at least you won’t be alone. Oh, and now you don’t have to explain the werewolf situation to your dad. Universe hopping pretty much cleared that up for you.”

“Where is Dark Stiles anyway?”

“Locked up, he woke up a few days ago.”

“A few days? How long was I out?”

“Five days. Your father finally let someone else look after you for a bit so he could get some sleep and something to eat. Melissa, both of them, forbade most of your pack from hovering. My pack is still angry that we never told them what was happening, so they haven’t been much of a problem. But thumbs up for dealing with your own pack, they are persistent fuckers.”

All she could do was laugh, because he was right.

She took the cup back from Stiles and sipped at the glass until it was empty. She handed it back with a smile, eyes flicking to the hulking dark mass in the corner.

“Hey, you really need to train your Derek to stop lurking in the corner. It’s creepy.”

Male Stiles snorted.

“Oh, that’s not my Derek. My Derek is off with your Scout and my Scott dealing with the Other Other Stiles.”

“Not your Der- Then, if he’s not yours, then,” she stuttered, looking between the two. Male Stiles grinned.

“Actually, I just remembered there’s a thing that I have to do, important things, things for science. I’ll be back later. Have fun.”

He slipped out of the room, leaving them alone.

“I leave you alone for a couple of hours, and you get yourself pulled into other universes,” Derek said, kicking off his shoes and shedding his jacket before crawling into the bed with her. She immediately folded herself into him. “Maybe I should stop leaving you alone.”

Stiles smiled, hiding her face in his chest. “Yeah, maybe you should.”

They didn’t cuddle, not often anyway. Derek generally curled away from her after, or got up to make them food. They were always up for post-sex snacks. This was odd, but Stiles loved how warm Derek was, how his arms felt against her, and she would trade all of the post-sex snacks for this.

“Have you met you yet?” she asked. “He’s a real piece of work.”

“Yeah, he actually growled at me when I first tried to see you. It’s amazing the effect you have on people after just a couple of days.”

“He hasn’t said more than three words to me the entire time I was here,” she said with a quiet laugh.

“He still thought of you as his, he wouldn’t have reacted to me that way otherwise,” Derek informed her. “He likes you.”

“Don’t tease,” she whined, pushing herself up onto an elbow.

“Tell me about what you’ve been up to,” Derek said, nuzzling into her arm, kissing her palm as she brushed hair from his face.

“I have been trying to get home since I got here,” she whined. “I did nothing but read boring ass books and want to blow my brains out. It’s so awful.”

“Yeah, they’ve had us reading lots of books about spells and parallel universes since we all got here, trying to find a way for us to go home. They’re boring as hell.” He ran his hand through his hair, resting his palm at the nape of her neck. “You know, no one really explained what is happening here.”

“You just like to hear me talk,” she accused, taking his free hand in her own and playing with his fingers, slotting and reslotting their hands together.

“Maybe. Are you going to deny me that pleasure, if I do?”

“No, I suppose not. Most people try to shut me up, though, so it’s a bit weird.”

He hummed.

“Okay, well, we’re in this parallel universe where I’m a guy, and so is Scout. This is actually the Original universe apparently, and our universe is determined by me and Scout being female defects. And there’s this guy, another male version of myself, who wants to be all powerful and decided to use his magic to get him to the Original universe and take Original Stiles’ power and take over his life, but he didn’t count on there being a universe between his and the one he was leaping into, and he accidentally pulled me in with him, and I’m just guessing, but because Scout and I were touching at that moment, she came too. And this guy, he’s completely different from me, or Original Stiles, even though we’re the same person. Because he comes from a world where he killed his pack, just so he could have more power. He sacrificed them, all of them, Isaac, Cora, Lydia, you.” She bit her lip. “Scott. But, I still can’t even fathom how he could get rid of you. I mean, sure, you’re not the easiest guy to get along with, especially when you won’t _talk_ to me about anything, but easy or not, you’re still my Alpha, and you still are worth something. But he, he doesn’t feel any remorse for it. He doesn’t care who he has to sacrifice to get what he wants. He killed Scott. He took Scott’s life, just so he could come here to kill more people. And Jesus Christ, I never want to be like that.”

“Hey, you won’t,” he assured her.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Oh, yeah? And how’s that?”

“You care about people, Stiles. You will always care about people. You care about this pack, and it’s why you spend so much time trying to keep us from dying. You will never be like him because you care more about keeping us alive, than you do being the most powerful. If that were the case, you would have had Peter give you the Bite. You would’ve become the Alpha, and you would’ve used your magic to rule the world. But you didn’t want that. You’re still human, and you don’t use what you have to harm. You will never be like him, do you understand?”

She tried to hide wiping away her tears with her free hand.

“You know, this is going to sound ridiculous because I was only gone for two days, but I missed the hell out of you. We saw each other every day for weeks, and then I couldn’t see you, and the you I was seeing wasn’t the same. I couldn’t just sit on you or make you get me chocolate milk in the middle of research.”

“I did that once.”

“And you will do it many more times, shut up. I’m having an epiphany here.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t want this to just be casual sex anymore. I don’t think it has been for a while, for me anyway. I’ve been lying to myself, saying it doesn’t mean anything more than just being mutually beneficial. I don’t just want to be a fling, and if you don’t want that, I think it’s best if we just stop all together, because I can’t keep doing this if it doesn’t mean the same thing for you. And-”

“Stiles.”

“No, listen to me. I missed you every single second I was here without you, and if that’s not an indication of how much you mean to me, I have no idea what is. And I will be able to move on from this, if you don’t want that, which I get, but not if you’re always around. I would rather stay here and miss you every day for the rest of my life than try and move on when you’re still around.”

“Stiles.”

“Seriously, you should go if-”

“ _Stiles,_ ” he growled, nudging her back down as she tried to sit up. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re ridiculous if you think I don’t want exactly what you want. You have a key to my apartment, and you drive my Camaro more than I do. I don’t want to be casual anymore, either. You being gone without a trace scared the hell out of us, all of us, but especially me. I couldn’t find you and the thought of never seeing you again was the worst thing I’ve had to face, and I don’t want to lose you. So if you’d just shut up for a moment.”

He tipped her chin up and crashed their lips together, a desperate kiss full of need and reassurance. They gripped tightly to one another, hands fisted in each other’s hair and clothing, clinging as if when they let go, the other would disappear. Stiles pushed herself even closer to him, parting his legs with her knee.

A door shut near them and they pulled apart, heartbeat racing in their ears as they watched the door.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking around.

“Deaton’s house. They couldn’t think of a place to keep everyone, especially a comatose girl who has no record of existing in this world,” Derek explained, pressing feather kisses across Stiles’ cheeks and jaw.

“Hmm, you know you’re going to have to meet my father as my boyfriend now, right? And take me out properly, and act like an actual citizen, instead of a reclusive shut in. No more Boo Radley impressions, not when you’re dating the Sheriff’s daughter.”

“I’m sure I can manage,” Derek hummed. “For you, at least.”


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles still felt faint and weak, even after forcing down a protein bar and a glass of orange juice. She soldiered on, because that’s what she was good at. Once out of bed, she followed Derek to where the rest of her pack was contained, a large expansive living room with an overly large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. The first to attack her in an overly tight hug was Lydia, her small frame crashing into Stiles’ with such force that Derek had to grab onto them to keep them from toppling.

“I was so worried about you,” Lydia whined, her face tucked against Stiles’ collarbone, feet vacant of her usual heels. Stiles buried her nose into Lydia’s hair, which smelled of strawberries and cream. “Don’t do that to me again, Stiles Stilinski!”

“I’ll try not to get myself pulled into a parallel universe by an evil version of myself hellbent on killing for power, but you know, I can’t make any promises. It’s a dangerous life I lead,” Stiles joked, gripping the back of Lydia’s dress.

“Take me with you next time. I want an adventure,” she said. Stiles nodded.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll bring you along.”

“Okay, Martin, stop hogging Stilinski. You’re not the only one in this pack that missed her,” Erica said, shoving Lydia aside and inserting herself into Stiles’ grasp.

“Erica!” Stiles squealed, holding the beta close, burying herself into the other. “Oh my god. You have no idea how good it is to see you.”

“Yeah, Scout filled me in on what happened. It’s alright. I’m still okay.”

“Stay that way,” Stiles mumbled.

“Oh, you’re not getting rid of me for a long time,” she replied.

Stiles hugged them all, Isaac, Cora, Allison, Boyd, and Lydia again before her father entered Deaton’s living room, Scout, Scott, the other Derek and the Original Stiles in tow.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff breathed, catching her eye. She broke out of her embrace with Lydia and walked towards her father. He reached her and yanked her into his arms. “It’s so good to see you up, kid. You scared me so bad; I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” she murmured into his shoulder, hiding her face in his shirt. She was practically the same height as the Sheriff, just an inch or two shorter with her mother’s frame of long limbs. Male Stiles was built the same way, save for his shoulders. “I missed you, Daddy.”

“I missed you too, kid.”

She didn’t want to let him go, because that meant she’d actually have to face him, have to face her lies and explain what she’d been doing in the past two years. She wasn’t sure she could, it had been so long since she’d been truthful with him. She wasn’t sure she knew how to tell the truth now; her brain had rewired itself to slip out a lie, to weave a believable story that would get her off the hook. She didn’t want to let him go because she’d see that look on his face, that disappointment that she’d grown accustomed to.

“We have to talk,” the Sheriff finally said. She whined. “You have some explaining to do.”

She took a deep breath and stepped back, biting her lip.

“Yeah, I know. Just promise not to hate me.”

“Oh, Stiles, you know I could never. I just need you to be honest with me for once.”

“Okay, yeah, I can do that.”

He led her into a separate room that still wouldn’t be private, thanks to werewolf super-hearing, but gave them the delusion of privacy. She fell, exhausted, into a rigid dining chair, the standing and the walking too much for her already sore body. Her spell had taken quite a toll on her, as had Dark Stiles’. She wouldn’t feel 100% for quite a few days at the least, she knew that. Any exertion of her magic left her feeling drained and queasy for days, and sometimes weeks, if she wasn’t careful. Her Deaton was always chastising her on being cautious, on only using as much power as she could handle and to never push herself farther than she could go. She never listened.

“Where do you want me to start?” she asked.

“Start with werewolves.”

She started with werewolves. She told him about how she had dragged Scout out to look for Laura Hale’s dead body and how Scout had ended up getting bit by something, which turned out to be a crazy Alpha werewolf. She told him about Peter Hale killing, about trying to build his pack. She told him everything, including how she’d picked up magic after the incident with the mountain ash, and even how she started seeing Derek right before the sacrifices started, over the summer before junior year started. She watched the concern spread and grow on his face, sometimes anger flickering in and out.

“And we ended up being sucked into this world,” she said with a sigh a while later. “We’ve been trying to find a way home since, but the only spell we found must be cast by someone who is staying in this world, and I’m the only person we know so far who can cast a spell that powerful.”

She ran a hand through her hair nervously, peeking at him through her eyelashes.

“Derek Hale, Stiles?” the Sheriff asked after a long moment of silence.

“Out of all of that, it’s Derek you have a problem with?” she gasped.

“He’s in his late twenties!”

“He’s 23, Dad,” Stiles shot back.

“He’s six years older than you! And a criminal!”

“He was cleared of those charges.”

“Charges you put against him!”

“Dad!” Stiles whined, “I really like him, and he cares about me. He won’t hurt me.”

“Will dating him put you in danger? In more danger than you’re already putting yourself in?”

“No, yeah, maybe, I don’t know. But dating him makes me happy. Shouldn’t that matter to you?”

“I’d rather have you alive and miserable, Stiles, than joyous and dying.”

“Dad.”

“Stiles.”

“Please,” she said softly, reaching over the dining table and grabbing his hand. “When I’m with him, my mind isn’t scrambling in ten different directions, and my hands don’t itch to move, to touch, to fiddle. The chatter in my head, Dad, it shuts off for a little bit and I can concentrate, better than I ever could on Ritalin, or Adderall, or any of the other ten thousand medications they’ve put me on. Please, don’t make me give that up.”

The Sheriff stared at her, jaw set for a moment before he sighed.

“He will not be allowed in our house while I am not there, Stiles. And he will be coming to Sunday dinners, do you understand me? There will be rules, and if they will not be followed, I do not care how clear your head is, he will be thrown in jail for the rest of his life, werewolf or not.”

Stiles practically flung herself over the table, squeezing the Sheriff in a dangerously tight hug, bouncing happily on his legs.

“You are just the best father in the whole world, Dad! Seriously! I’m nominating you for Father of the Year, of the Decade, of the Universe To Infinity and Beyond, and I’ll buy you all of the World’s Best Dad memorabilia for the rest of forever!” she squealed.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff warned.

“Sorry, I haven’t taken my medication since the day before we popped into this universe. I’m a bit jittery, but at least there were no withdrawal symptoms, although those might have happened in that intense black out period. I should shut up, but seriously, you are the very bestest best.”

 

-&-

 

The Sheriff sat Derek down for a very serious talk about the law, and Stiles’ age, and Derek’s age, and rules that he would follow and the bodily harm that would fall upon Derek should he ever break those rules. 

Derek didn’t admit it, but when he stood and rejoined the pack in the living room, it was the palest he had ever been, and his hands had never shook so bad.

 

-&-

 

The problem with having two of nearly every member of the pack was that they were identical, and you never knew if you were about to brush your hand against a friend you’d fought alongside for two years or a complete stranger that looked and smelled (if you were a werewolf) exactly like said friend. Scout kissed the wrong Allison, and the wrong Allison liked it, and Stiles hugged the wrong Sheriff, which was awkward at best.

“I’m going to start having everyone from my universe wear pink ribbons or something, because I cannot handle this!” Stiles finally growled, having playfully bumped Isaac, the wrong Isaac, out of the way in Deaton’s house. “Seriously, how the hell are we supposed to tell the difference? You look, sound, act, smell, and whatever else you can think of, just like my Isaac but nope, you’re the Original and I’m so done with this parallel universe shit! I just want to go home and not be here!”

She collapsed into a chair and tried not to cry, she really did.

It had been three more days since she woke up, totaling 10 days of being in this parallel universe, and she hadn’t slept well in the pack pile that had taken over Deaton’s living room. She was exhausted, agitated, unfocused and if she read one more stupid theoretical essay of theoretical parallel universes, she was going to scream. It wasn’t theoretical, it was real, and she wanted it to be over with. She didn’t want to be in Wonderland, anymore. She wanted to return to England and wake up underneath the tree where she fell asleep to discover that it had all been a dream.

She cried.

“I didn’t do it!” the wrong Isaac yelped as she buried her head in her hands and tried so desperately not to sob like a girl.

“It’s not you, Isaac,” Male Stiles said, coming to kneel in front of Stiles. “She’s just a long way from home. We’re doing our best, Stiles. I promise. We’ll get all of you home, and you’ll have one of everyone, just the way it’s supposed to be.”

He rested his hands on her knees, just like her mother used to, and she suspected just like his did. She used to sit in front of Stiles, no matter where Stiles was, usually, curled up, and she’d set her hands on Stiles’ tiny, knobby knees and ask Stiles what happened, why was her Mini Muffin so upset. If Stiles didn’t tell her, she’d be swept into a big Stilinski hug, and Claudia wouldn’t let go until Stiles told her or smiled.  

“Does Mini Muffin need a hug?” Male Stiles teased.

“Don’t you dare, asshole,” Stiles giggled, wiping away tears from her cheeks. “God, I forgot about Mini Muffin.”

“So did I, actually.”

“What’s Mini Muffin?” Isaac, the Original asked tentatively.

“Mom used to call us Mini Muffin,” Male Stiles answered.

“She used to call Dad Muffin, when she teased him and even back then, we were exactly like him, so Muffin and Mini Muffin,” she continued. “Thanks.” She nudged the male her at her feet. “I probably would’ve worked myself into-”

“A panic attack, I know. I’m you, remember?”

“Yeah, still a bit freaky.”

He hummed in agreement. “I think Scott just came back with his superhero movie collection, if you want to join us in the living room.”

“Yeah, I could go for some superhero action.”

She followed him into the living room, Original Isaac following as well. Male Stiles and Isaac took their seats with Scott on the couch, while Stiles looked for her own Scout and Isaac, for her own place.

“I’m sorry about turning your home into a halfway house for wayward teenager werewolves,” the Sheriff was apologizing as he followed Deaton into the house, two identical Derek Hales behind them.

“That’s confusing, which one is which?” Erica asked, falling into Isaac’s lap on the floor. “I mean, one Derek is bad enough, but two? Stiles, which one is which?”

“Which witch is which,” Stiles muttered, looking between them.

“That was a good book,” Male Stiles said.

“Can you guess which Derek is which?” Original Isaac asked, looking to the pair in the door.

“There’s only one good way I know,” Stiles said, crossing the room.

“Stiles Stilinski, you remember our deal,” the Sheriff warned as the two adults slipped into the kitchen.

“Yeah, yeah, hands to myself,” she grumbled, sliding in front of the two Dereks. “Without breaking my father’s rules or spoiling the fun of guessing… I apologize to my Derek for this.”

She pressed herself into the closest Derek and kissed him, softly, with her hands safely behind her back. After a beat of being the only one putting any effort into the kiss, she stepped away, sliding up to the other and kissing him instead. Immediately, her Derek’s hands found her sides and pulled her in tight, her own sneaking up to grasp his shoulders. Oh, god, those shoulders. She could wax poetic for days about those shoulders, and the muscles, and his arms. She held in her whimper and broke off the kiss, patting his chest affectionately.

“Yupp, this one’s mine.”

“That’s good, for you. You can just kiss them and figure it out, but what about the rest of us?” Stiles asked. She smirked and reached into her shirt, pulling out her pendant. She pulled it over her head, tugging it out from underneath her hair, before looping it over her Derek’s head and settled it against his chest.

“There. That’s much better.”

 

-&-

 

While the Original pack went to school and about their lives, the Parallel pack was stuck reading, and researching, and lazing about bored out of their minds.

“Maybe,” Stiles said, rereading the passage for the spell they had found to send them home. “Maybe I should just do the spell.”

“Hmmm,” Derek hummed, his head rested in her lap while she leaned against the couch. Isaac was snoring lightly behind her on the cushions, occasionally snuffling in Stiles’ hair from where it was splayed against the couch.

“It’s the only real answer to all this. I can’t keep everyone here, not when they’ve got families and lives back home. I’ll stay here. That’s what makes sense.”

“No,” he growled, eyes snapping open. He sat up, and grabbed her hands. “Absolutely not.”

“Come on, Derek. If I’m the only person who can send us home, but the price is I have to stay, then why shouldn’t I just do it?”

“Because you’re coming home with us; there are no ifs, ands or buts about it, Stiles. You think any of us want to go home if going home means going without you? Do you know how scared the pack was that they’d lost you? Your father was out of his mind with worry, because you were gone without a trace. And you want to put him through that? Missing his only family, his only daughter? You can’t tell me that that would be an acceptable alternative!”

“Derek, we’re not getting home if I don’t.”

“Then we’re not going home. Don’t you get it?” he asked. “No one wants to go without you. No one has even thought of that spell as an option because it means going without you, and that is unfathomable to all of us. Why can’t you understand that?”

“Guys, can you keep your couple fighting for when we’re not trying to pretend like we’re asleep so maybe someone lets us out of the house out of sheer pity?” Cora asked, her head pillowed on Lydia’s leg near the entertainment stand. Everyone, save Isaac, was sprawled across one another; all connected by at least a leg thrown over someone else’s, or a hand running through someone’s hair lazily.

Pack, Stiles thought.

No matter what Derek said, Stiles was getting this pack back to its own universe, at any cost.

-&-

 

It was agreed that everyone from Stiles and Scout’s universe had to wear cute pink pins that Stiles and Lydia put together out of a kit purchased from a craft store, just to be sure that no one kissed or hugged or groped the wrong pack member. Although Scout still managed to kiss the wrong Allison at least once a day, but Stiles figured that was Allison’s doing, being in the same place as Scout whenever Scout was alone. Stiles didn’t say anything, but Allison, the Original, definitely had a thing for kissing girls, and was apparently unattached.

Unfortunately, just because everyone could tell each other apart, doesn’t mean the situation had in any way fixed itself. The bad, dark, evil, rotten Stiles was still being held in the cellar of the Hale house, which okay, he deserves that but that means the Dereks had to go down there and that’s not cool, and no one had found an alternative to the spell the two Stileses had found before.

Everyone was so close to giving up, and Stiles couldn’t even blame them. She’d gotten them all into this, indirectly for Scout, and directly for the rest of them, and she still had no way of fixing her mistake.

“I need to talk to him,” she said, slamming the spell book she had open on her lap shut. “There’s no way to get home, not without him.”

She stood and started for the door, only to be seized by two pairs of hands, one holding onto each of her arms. She jerked her arms away, glaring at Derek and Stiles for interfering.

“Do you have any better way? We’ve been at this for two weeks, _two weeks_ of reading the same spell books, the same essays, the same Druid chicken scratch, and we’ve got nothing to show for it! He’s the only one who has successfully moved between worlds, and I don’t care how batshit crazy he is. I’m going, and neither of you can stop me.”

“Stiles, come on, that guy is dangerous,” Derek tried to reason.

“No, you come on, Derek. This is my fault, the reason you’re all here. I fucked up, and brought you all here, so I’m going to fix it. I don’t care how dangerous he is. I’ve faced him before, and I will face him again, a hundred times over if it means putting this right. Now, get out of my way, or so help me, I will eat you for breakfast.”

“Stiles,” he ducked his head to look at her.

She growled, nothing supernatural or anything, just human and filled with frustration.

“I don’t care how cute you are, or how attached I am to you, Derek Hale. Move.”

He didn’t, and in a fit of temper, her power licked up through her and lashed out, throwing everyone backwards a few feet.

“Thank you,” she said, stomping out of the house and into the Jeep Stiles had parked in the driveway. She popped open the glove compartment and sorted through the mess of paperwork before finding the spare key tucked underneath a piece of duct tape. She jammed it into the ignition and turned, listening for the rumble of the engine. The Jeep really was a piece of crap, when you got right down to it, but she loved it, and she was convinced it loved her, because no other piece of crap would continue to run after so many accidents.

“Come on, baby. I’ve got a bone to pick with an asshole.”

 

-&-

 

“Well, well, look who we have here!” Dark Stiles chuckled as Stiles entered his holding cell. He was chained, like that would actually do much good if he decided to escape, to a wall, and sat in a stiff backed wooden chair. “Here I thought the pack princess was too good to come and play with the common folk.”

“Shut it,” she snarled, rolling up the sleeves on a shirt she’d borrowed from Stiles. Between Allison’s jeans, and Stiles’ shirts, she hardly even looked like herself anymore, but that figured because she didn’t actually feel like herself anymore either. She’d used her power against _Derek_ , and Jesus, she’d sworn to Deaton that she would never use her power against someone unless absolutely necessary, if and only if it were a life and death situation.

Deaton, she reminded herself as she stared at the Stiles in front of her, was a universe away.

“How do we get home?” she asked, feeling the power rise from the Earth, coiling up her legs and settling into a tight ball of energy in her belly, ready and waiting for its target.

“You don’t.”

She lashed out, using the tendrils of energy like a physical limb, punching deep into his gut. He chuckled through a throaty cough.

“You’re stronger than I thought. Deaton taught you well.”

“Did you kill him, too?”

“Oh, yes. Him, too.”

“You’re a real bastard, you know that? Just tell me how to get home.”

“You already know, Stiles. I know you do. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because Scout won’t leave you. Or, is it Derek? Hmm, interesting. The Alpha is particularly problematic, isn’t he? Can you imagine how much easier your life would be without him? How many decisions you could make on your own, without having to go through _him_ first? You could be unstoppable, Stiles.”

“I don’t care what you have to say,” she barked. “I don’t want to be unstoppable. I don’t want to make my own decisions. I just want to go home, and you’re going to tell me how, or so help me, I will rip you apart.”

“No, you won’t. As powerful as you are, you are also weak. You are compassionate; you care about those around you. You could not take my life, unless under extreme duress.”

“I’d say I’m under pretty extreme duress right now, don’t you think?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. She reached out with a tendril of power and grabbed his chin, yanking him to the edge of the chair. “I have no patience for you, kid. So you’re going to tell me, and you’re going to tell me right now, how I am getting myself and my pack home without leaving a member behind. You got here, you must have had some exit strategy.”

“I intended on staying, dear,” he said. “There was no exit strategy.”

“You’re telling me that Stiles Stilinski doesn’t have a Plan B just in case his perfect plan didn’t work out? I don’t believe that. We are the same person, and while you have a warped, twisted sense of morality, you are still the same Stiles Stilinski that I am, and no Stiles would plan something as thoroughly as you had, without a back-up. What was it?”

“There was no back-up,” he said, meeting her eyes. She stared him down, and his gaze flicked away. “And even if I did have one, it would transport a single person, only one, and you would have to leave your pack behind.”

“Give me the spell.”

He hummed.

“I’m afraid I cannot do that. Your precious Dereks took all of the supplies I brought with me, destroyed them. Not that I wouldn’t be able to procure more, should I escape. But, it was a very noble idea. I give them ten points for execution, but only seven and a half for actual forethought. I mean, really.”

“Stop talking,” she growled. “What did you bring with you?”

“Herbs, a couple potions, my grimoire,” he listed with a lazy shrug.

“Grimoire, a spell book,” she said.

“Mmm, you aren’t nearly as dumb as you look.”

“We’re nearly identical, asshole,” she shot as she looked around the basement.

“They destroyed it, though. You won’t be getting home, Miss Stilinski.”

He was right, she knew he was. She could send her pack home, and she could know they were safe there, but there was no way she could go there herself, not without his grimoire. There was just no way.

 In frustration more than anything else, she lashed out at him, grabbing his heart with her power and gripped, squeezing. The door to the cellar banged open and a single set of footsteps stomped down the rickety steps.

“They told me I might find you here,” Derek grumbled, but it wasn’t her Derek. He would’ve started yelling right away, telling her how stupid and reckless she was being, and was she trying to make him lose her, and how they couldn’t continue dating if she was just going to shove him away every time he tried to talk sense into her.

The Stiles in the chair choked, his hands scrabbling at the fabric over his chest. She felt his own power prying at her hold on his heart, trying in desperation to push her away.

“What’s going on?” Derek asked, coming to stand beside her. “Is he alright?”

“No, probably not,” she said in return.

“What are you doing to him?”

She looked up towards him, and caught the fear hidden in his eyes. She released her grip on Stiles and backed away, tamping down the raging power inside her until she felt normal again, felt free. She was glad she had her power to protect her, but too much made her feel trapped, like she was stuffed into a small box and all the air had been vacuumed out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just want to go home, and he had the answer. He had the solution.”

Derek drew her into a tentative hug, his hand patting awkwardly at her back. She gripped his shirt, holding herself against him. She didn’t cry, but she wanted to. She’d never lost control like that, never used so freely without thinking of the consequences. It was scary. Maybe she was more like the Stiles in the chair than she thought.

“Oh, how touching,” he said from his chair, his voice seemed to bounce from all directions.

Without warning, Derek was thrown from Stiles, or rather, Stiles was thrown from Derek. Derek remained stationary, frozen to his spot as Stiles slammed into the wall, a cry slipping from her mouth. The chain that held Dark Stiles snapped like it was made of nothing more than thin paper, and he rose, flexing his hands with a satisfied smirk.

“There, that is much better. You may be more powerful than me, Stiles, but you are delusional if you think that simple chains will keep me prisoner. Now, because of your little power trip, your boyfriend will be the first to die.”

He started towards Derek, hands up, palms facing Derek with his fingers spread wide. His eyes blazed with a crazed fury, and Stiles feared for not only the life of her pack, but of the world. She’d seen eyes like that before, in Peter Hale, in Gerard Argent, in Deucalion, and in Jennifer Blake.

“Derek!” she yelped as Stiles’ hand glowed, an aura of power surrounding the limb, and he slammed the hand against Derek’s chest. “No!”

Blood poured from the wound and Dark Stiles simply grinned, winked at Stiles, and disappeared. Stiles bolted across the floor, catching Derek as he dropped to the ground.

“Holy shit, holy shit. Derek. Derek, please be okay,” she whimpered, cradling his head in her lap. He groaned, eyelids fluttering as he fought to stay conscious. “Are you healing? Why aren’t you healing?”

“Magic,” Derek coughed, his whole body bowing with it. She stroked his jaw and neck comfortingly, worryingly at her lip with her teeth. “It’s as good as an Alpha.”

“You won’t heal as fast,” she said. He nodded. “Is there, is there anything we can do? There’s got to be something.”

“No,” he murmured.

“I’m going to try and heal it myself, okay? I don’t know if I can, but I’m going to try. Just, hang on, baby.” She moved her hands to his wound and pressed, closing her eyes and focused, willing the power to spread through her, to reach into Derek and mend him. She felt it tickling at his wound, trying to find something to latch onto but she could feel, and tell without having to feel that she wasn’t strong enough. “Goddamn it. No.”

“It’s okay,” he murmured. He grabbed and clutched one of her hands, his blood slick between them. She leaned over, pressing a kiss to his forehead. The door to the cellar banged open again, and this time, two sets of steps descended. She looked up, her eyes finding Stiles and her Derek at the foot. She glanced between her hands and Stiles, the idea forming slowly.

“Stiles, get your ass down here,” she barked, moving her hands from Derek’s and to his chest, pressing into the wound. He whimpered, tried to move away. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve got to try. Stiles, here, now.”

Stiles stumbled to her side and fell ungracefully into the dirty cement. She seized his hands and laced their fingers together.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m not strong enough, to heal him on my own. I’m not strong enough, but you are. You’re the Original, the most powerful. You have the potential to save him, but you don’t know how to use it. I’m going to use your power, channel it through me to heal him.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. What you’re going to have to do is focus on believing you can heal him, focus on believing he’s healed. Can you do that?”

“Like with the mountain ash.”

“Exactly like that.”

He nodded and she moved their conjoined hands to the wound again, slipping back into focus. She felt connected, not only to the Earth as she always had when she used her power, but to Stiles, and through Stiles, to Derek. She used that connection to reach for Stiles’ power, coaxing it as it peeked out. She drew it out of him, through her, and into Derek, a circle of power cycling through the three of them. Slowly, achingly, the wound closed and he coughed, moving to sit up. Her hands, still laced with Stiles’, shook as she collapsed backwards. Stiles did the same, his hands slipping away. They both breathed heavily, as if they’d run a 5k without a break.

“Jesus Christ, if that’s how it will feel every time, I want nothing to do with it,” Stiles wheezed.

“It only feels like that if you over-use it. If you try to do too much before you’re ready, like trying to sprint before you can walk kind of thing. Deaton is always berating me for pushing myself too much, but even he would agree that this was a necessary evil situation. You did pretty well, you know that? The first time I over-used, I vomited, passed out, and couldn’t walk straight for a week.”

Stiles chuckled.

“What happened here?” Stiles asked, looking around, his eyes landing on the broken chain and the empty chair. “Where’d he go?”

“Oh, well. That, like everything else, is my fault.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here it is, over 5k words long, and with my sincerest apologies for the wait. I have like work, and responsibilities, and it's all very exhausting. I wish not to bug you with my trials, however, only to thank you for sticking it out, and for reading (and hopefully enjoying. Let me know what you think, criticism welcome). One more chapter, and this journey with Stiles, Stiles, and Stiles is wrapped. :)
> 
> If you wish to follow me on tumblr, you can do so at packyourbagsrightnow.tumblr.com 
> 
> DFTBA


	5. Chapter 5

Scout stood between Stiles and Derek, arms stretched out like a crossing guard while she stared Derek down. Stiles and Derek had been fighting since Stiles had explained what had happened in the cellar. It wasn’t uncommon for them to bicker, two headstrong opinionated minds rarely was a course that ran smooth. But this time, it was bad enough for Scout to intervene, standing between the two, protecting her best friend from danger.

“AND I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU DO NOT BACK UP RIGHT NOW, DEREK HALE, I WILL ERASE YOUR EXISTENCE FROM THIS UNIVERSE AND ALL OTHER UNIVERSES!” Scout snarled. Derek roared in return, his eyes burning Alpha red at the challenge.

“Hey, I didn’t do anything,” the other Derek yelped, looking up from where he was lounged on the couch. While the two Stileses had healed him so he wouldn’t die, the magic had made him sore and weak. Stiles knew the feeling, and had helped him onto the couch in his own loft, despite her own Derek’s jealous growling.

Stiles moved to the side of the couch and sat beside the other Derek.

“Don’t listen to her, she’s just being protective. That’s the only Derek she’s liable to injure,” Stiles soothed, patting his shoulder as he leaned into her.

Her Derek’s eyes locked on the pair, a threatened growl ripping through the air.

“Really? I’m just fucking _sitting_ with him, Derek! Not mounting him!” Stiles snapped, turning to glare at Derek in return. “Can you calm your jealousy hormones for a second?”

“I’m not the one who decided that it was okay to use a spell that would take you away from me, leaving you in this world. Forgive me if I have to question whether or not you have ulterior motives.”

“ _Ulterior motives?_ Are you seriously suggesting that I want to get rid of my friends and my family just so I can be with someone else? Do you think that little of me? If I didn’t want to be with you, Derek, I wouldn’t have told my father about you, about us. Now if you would stop bitching at me long enough, I have a question to ask! The same question I’ve been trying to ask for twenty minutes, but you won’t let me!”

“What’s that?” the Derek at her side asked.

“He told me that you guys took the stuff he brought with him, herbs and potions, and a book. A grimoire, to be exact. I think there’s a spell to get us home. Did you,” she bit her lip and looked at the Derek on the couch. “He said you destroyed it. I have an idea, on how to get the pack home, using the first spell, the one that everyone is so against, and then using Dark Stiles’ escape plan to get myself home, but. He said.”

“We didn’t destroy it. We hid it,” Derek, the Original said, pushing himself up and pointing towards the stairs. “Upstairs, under the floorboard by my bed.”

Stiles kissed his cheek without a thought and dashed upstairs into Derek’s bedroom. She knew exactly what floorboard he was talking about; her Derek hid a candy stash there (who knew Derek Hale had a sweet tooth?) from the pack. They could smell it, but none of them could ever find it, and Stiles found it immensely amusing watching them pace, sniffing the air during pack meetings. She pried up the board, discarding it and reached into the floor, pulling up a small leather satchel. She searched through it and found just what Stiles had listed, packets of dried herbs, vials of luminous potions, and a small leather-bound journal filled with her, his handwriting. It documented how to make talismans and amulets, how to perform spells, charms, divination, and how to summon angels, spirits, demons. It was beautiful.

She murmured to herself, reading aloud spell titles as she flipped through.

“Ahhh, you clever boy,” she chuckled, tracing her finger over the two pages open in front of her. “There and Back Again. I’m beginning to like you, Stiles Stilinski.”

She stumbled back downstairs, finding Derek Hale wrestling Derek Hale, both in their wolf forms as they snarled, one eyes’ red and the other’s blue as they tumbled across the floor. They swiped at each other with claws and tried to rip into each other with fangs. It didn’t seem like either was winning, too evenly matched despite their different statuses.

“Jesus Christ, I left the room for a second and you’re trying to kill each other! Will you, guys! Guys! Stop it! Scout, do something!” Stiles whined, thrusting her hands forward in the air wildly.

“I’m not getting in the middle of a catfight over you. Sorry, babe. Break that one up yourself.”

Stiles groaned.

“You’re more likely to heal,” she said.

“You’re more likely not to get hurt in the first place,” Scout reasoned.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. You love me.”

Stiles turned her attention back to the brawl and moved forward, dropping the journal onto the couch for safekeeping.

“Let’s do this.”

She marched forward and grabbed the closest heavy object, a thick hardcover book on a side table. She threw it at them with all her strength, hitting what she thought was her Derek in the head.

“STOP!” she yelled, and they froze. “You are _not_ fighting over me right now! Stop it, stop it.”

She grabbed the back of the shirt of the Derek on top (her Derek, it turned out) and yanked, pulling him to his feet. Most werewolves wouldn’t, and couldn’t be manhandled but Stiles considered herself a special case when it came to Derek Hale.

“I am so sick of your shit, Derek Hale. I will not be treated like an object you own. If I want to stay here, I will stay here. If I want to be with _that_ Derek, I will. Because I am my own person, and I can make decisions for myself. However, I don’t want to stay here, and I don’t want to be with that Derek. I want to be with you, this Derek. The one that I held up in the pool for hours, and the one that has saved my life on several occasions. The one that chose me over Jennifer Blake, and despite his protests, is always there when I need him. Yes, that Derek is scarily similar and were I drunk, I probably could find my way to the wrong Derek, but that’s not what I want. I want you, and you keep forgetting that.”

He frowned.

“But if you’re going to keep being an idiot, I will have to change my mind. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry,” was all he could reply. But Stiles knew Derek didn’t apologize, and when he did, it was seriously the double rainbow of her life. She leaned in and kissed his nose.

“I know. Let’s just go home. I have an idea.”

 

-&-

 

Unfortunately for Stiles, going home was a lot harder than it sounded. Even with both of the spells, she needed all of her pack in the same place at the same time, and Scout was nowhere to be found. Even Allison, Allison who always knew where Scout was mostly because they were always together and when they weren’t, they were sending each other grossly adorable text messages, didn’t know where Scout could be found.

“There’s really no place she could’ve gone. All of her friends are here, and she doesn’t have a car. Scout wouldn’t just wander off. She’s, she’s not the wandering type,” Stiles rambled, staring at her phone as she called Scout for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes. She wasn’t picking up, and Stiles was sure her voicemail was reaching capacity, full of a frantic Stiles looking for her best friend and demanding she call her back as soon as she finally checked her damn phone.

Her voicemail picked up and Stiles jabbed the end call button on her phone. She went to redial when Allison grabbed her hand.

“We’ll find her, it’s okay.”

“Something’s wrong, Allison. I know it.”

“Are you sure you’re not just imagining things? We’re all stressed, and haven’t gotten much sleep.”

“I’m not, I’m not _imagining_ this. Why would Scout disappear? What possible reason could she have for leaving?”

“Maybe she needs some space before we go. Her and Scott haven’t exactly gotten along, too much ego. You always assume the worst.”

“Have you been living the same life I have? Because you _have_ to assume the worst in order to survive,” she urged.

“Hyper vigilance,” Stiles added.

“Exactly, assuming the worst has kept me alive thus far, so forgive me if I’m going to keep it that way.”

“Stiles,” Allison sighed.

“Don’t you dare _Stiles_ me, Allison Argent! This is my best friend who isn’t here, nobody has seen, and isn’t answering my phone calls. We’ve been friends since we were six, and she shoved Jackson onto the ground when he was making fun of my name and she shared her peanut butter and jelly sandwich with me at lunch because Jackson took my lunch money. I will not just give up finding her because it doesn’t seem likely that she was taken. I refuse to let my shitty luck have Scout. So excuse me, I’m going to find her because that’s what she would do for me!”

She didn’t exactly have a plan, or a specific direction she was going to start looking in, but she just had to look. She had to try. She had to tear apart the town and leave no stone unturned, because this was Scout, this was her best friend, her _sister._ She wasn’t letting Dark Stiles, who she was mostly certain had taken Scout, win.

Not this time.

Not when it was Scout’s life on the line.

 

-&-

 

Granted, searching for someone in a town full of abandoned warehouses and woods without super powers of smelling was not the easiest task. But she figured that Dark Stiles wanted to be found, because that’s who he was. She found herself walking into the preserve, following the gravel driveway up to the burnt shell of the Hale house.

“I told you she’d show up,” Scout’s voice spat from inside the house, the door hanging open like an invitation.

“Oh, sweetheart. I was counting on it. With you and Miss Perfect out of the way, I can work on the rest of your pack and rid the whole of reality of every Scout, Scott and Stiles, until there is only me.”

“Awful ambitious,” Stiles said, stepping into the ruined entryway of the Hale home. “How are you going to do that without your precious spellbook?”

“I don’t need a spellbook anymore,” he countered. He sat on one of the few unbroken steps on the stairwell, Scout at the foot with her hands bound behind her. Her hair was still mussed from sleep and she was still wearing the pajamas she’d stolen from Allison, her feet bare.

“You okay?” Stiles asked, standing in the doorway and refusing to budge another inch.

“Except for the wolfsbane-infused rope and killer headache, yeah, I’m just peachy,” Scout grumbled, wiggling her toes in the dust and dirt.

“Don’t get bitchy with me; I’m here to save your ass.”

“With what, your dry wit? Because, in case you haven’t noticed, the elevator doesn’t go all the way up to the top floor,” Scout said, glancing over her shoulder at Dark Stiles.

“I’m not exactly defenseless, Scout.”

“This is all _very_ fascinating, but I’m just going to skip the playful banter and go straight to killing both of you. Sound like a good plan? Okay. Good. Let us begin.”

He stood and started down the steps, pulling out a very large knife, large enough to enter machete territory. Where did he even pull that out from, Stiles didn’t want to know. He grabbed Scout and yanked her up by the arm.

“Come along, Stiles. You wouldn’t want to miss the show!” he called, dragging Scout through the house to the back yard, shoving her down into the dirt at the edge of a circle of mountain ash. “Stay there, and be a good little puppy.”

“I am _not_ a puppy,” she snarled, throwing herself at the barrier only to be knocked backwards.

“Aren’t you, though? Because from what I hear, this world’s Scott is a True Alpha. Now, I don’t exactly know what that entails, but it sounds very powerful. And you, little pup, are nothing more than a fumbling newborn cub in the dark compared to him.”

Scout growled.

Stiles knew there was something there between Scout and her counterpart, something dark and deep like jealousy. She could sense it since they first met, her overprotectiveness kicking in double time around Scott. Stiles hadn’t even thought about Scout maybe thinking herself inferior compared to Scott, which Stiles knew she wasn’t. Given the proper motivation, Scout could tear down the world with her own two hands, beta or otherwise.

“Leave her alone,” Stiles said, moving to stand between her own counterpart and her best friend. “If you want to kill me, then kill me. But Scout doesn’t have to be a part of this.”

“Excuse m-”

“Shut up, Scout,” Stiles snapped without turning. “This is between me and you, Stilinski. So let her go, I’ll send my pack home, and we can settle this like men.”

“Sounds like an appealing offer, Stiles,” he purred, twirling the knife haphazardly in his hand. “But even Scout’s minimal amount of power would be an excellent addition to my collection.”

“Someone’s been watching too much Little Mermaid, so listen up, Ursula. You and your Sea Witch-y ways are going to leave town, or the universe, and you’re going to leave the princess and prince alone to have a happy life, where they raise a daughter who wants to be a mermaid and I completely lost track of this metaphor.”

“Who are the princess and prince in this delusion, Stiles?” he asked.

“No one. Can we just move on?”

“I’m curious, though. Is it you and Derek? Do you think you’ll get married someday and have an adorable wolf pup who grows up to be a strong Alpha? Because that will never happen. Even if you do survive today, Derek will never settle down. He will never marry, and he will never have pups. He’s too broken, too fucked up for a real family. He can’t be your little project forever, and maybe you will fix him, given enough stubborn will, but he won’t have that family with you.”

“Stop it,” she said, unable to look at him.

“Because I’m right, and you hate when other people are right about you, especially when you can’t admit it to yourself.”

“You don’t get to use that shit on me. You’re the same person, asshole. Of course, you know what I’m thinking. You and I were raised in the same household by the same parents. Claudia Stilinski died on the same day when you were 8, and John Stilinski held you through your first panic attack at her funeral. You and I are the same person.”

“We are not the same person,” Dark Stiles snapped, stepping towards her. She held her ground, even though her insides were trembling. She wanted to run, grab Scout’s hand and just go. She wanted to be nowhere near the psychopath before her.

“Maybe, maybe not,” was her response. She gathered her power, pulling and coaxing it up from the ground. It was easy, the energy flooding into her system like a dam broke; filling in the empty cracks and corners that she didn’t even know existed. The power she’d learned to control became an important part of her, and essential if she were being honest. Without it, she didn’t really know who she was anymore.

To be fair, she didn’t really know who she was before, either.

“Listen,” she started but before she could continue, his power whipped out and grabbed her by the throat, squeezing as it yanked her close to him. She scrabbled to pull his power off, shoving him away with a force she didn’t know she had. He flew through the air, and smashed into the back of the Hale house. Wooden siding crashed down on him, flattening him against the earth as Stiles grabbed him with an extra burst of telekinetic energy and sailed him through the air, letting him go to crash into a thick trunk of an oak tree. She stepped back and swept her foot across the dirt, breaking the circle of mountain ash.

“Go get the pack,” she said without looking at Scout.

“But you’ll be alone.”

“If you didn’t notice, I can handle myself. I’ll be fine. Go get the pack.”

She dragged Stiles back towards her, power wrapped around his ankle like a hand. It was amazing, she found herself thinking, how her Spark, or whatever you wanted to call it, had become an extension of her, just another limb to be flailed about and used to protect herself and her pack.

She dropped the Stiles near her feet and kneeled beside him.

“Listen to me,” she said, holding his hands down with her own and jerking his chin towards her with her power. “You are going to leave my pack alone, and you are going to leave the Original pack alone. You are going to slink into some dark corner of the world, and you are going to forget you were ever Stiles Stilinski. You are going to stop hurting people and you will never come near Beacon Hills ever again, in any universe. Do you understand me?”

He glared, his jaw set in defiance.

“I can’t hear you,” she snarled, pulling his head up from the ground and staring into his matching eyes.

“Kill me,” he replied, his face shifting. It was so subtle. His eyes softened, and his lips trembled as tears glazed over his eyes.

“I’m not you, I don’t kill people.”

“Then I will never stop. I will never leave your pack alone. I will never leave until your blood, and the blood of everyone you love is on my hands. I will never stop chasing you, hunting you. You will never be safe.”

He kicked her off with a burst of energy, tumbling her back onto the ground. She leapt to her feet as he charged her, his shoulder catching her in the stomach as he propelled them backwards.

“Get off!” she yelled.

“If you want me to leave, you kill me right now,” he said, pinning her to the ground, legs straddling her hips. He leaned over her, eyes ablaze with fury and beneath that, a hint of dark despair. “You kill me right now, Stiles, and end this miserable life I’ve been leading. I killed my entire pack, killed everyone I loved.”

“Why?”

“The power, Stiles. The power kept calling, kept begging me. It drove me crazy, listening to it sing in my head every day, wanting more, needing more. It became an addiction. I couldn’t, I couldn’t get enough, I just kept craving it more and more, and I killed my best friend for it.”

Stiles stared up at this foreign Stiles above her. She didn’t know what snapped inside him, but she never wanted to be like this, never wanted to end up like him.

“We can get you help,” she offered.

“There is no help!” he yelled, shoving her back into the ground. “JUST KILL ME!”

She shook her head.

“I’m not a killer.”

He shoved off and paced back and forth.

“Don’t you get it, Stiles? My father can’t look at me, he’s so disgusted. The one person who I left alive, and he hates me. Do you know what that feels like, for your father to be disgusted by what you are? I can’t, I can’t keep doing this. I need you to kill me. Kill me before I lose myself again.”

“Lose yourself?”

“The darkness, it takes over. I can feel myself drowning, and when I gasp for air, I’m no longer me. This dark, twisted side takes over, and it feels so damn good, but it’s so wrong. I can’t be him anymore. I can’t keep killing, losing myself a little bit more. This is the first time I’ve been lucid in three months. Three months of dark hatred, of the desire to kill, to destroy boiling inside me. I need you to kill me. Just do it.”

Stiles shook her head fervently.

“I can’t. I won’t.”

“It’s not even murder,” he whispered. “It’s like putting down a rabid dog. Merciful. You had to. It’s not murder if it saves the world, right? Please. Do this, before.”

She saw the change, his stance shifting from tired and weak to cocky and strong. Whatever lucid moment he’d had was gone.

He launched himself at her without warning and slammed her into a tree.

“Should’ve listened,” he tutted, grabbing her throat in his hand and pressing his thumb hard into her windpipe.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped out. She reached up with all the energy she could muster and grabbed his head, twisting. His neck snapped with a hideous _crack_ and he went limp, falling to the ground in a boneless heap. She stumbled away, falling over herself as she collapsed not far from him.

A corpse.

She’d done that.

She stared at her hands without seeing, her body quaking as she struggled to get air. It’d come out of nowhere, and she should’ve expected it.

The panic attack settled into her quickly, overtaking her vision and shaking it hard like a Magic 8 ball, taking control of her lungs and squeezing them until she couldn’t breathe, coating her hands in a thin layer of sweat. She started to cry, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tried to stop heaving in breaths that didn’t go anywhere, and stop shaking like a leaf during a hurricane.

The pack appeared at some point, and she was swept into an embrace, but she couldn’t tell whose.

“Stiles, come on, you need to breathe.”

A hand pressed into her chest, holding her against another.

“Breathe with me. Match my breathing. You can do it.”

She tried, taking a deep breath when they did, and exhaling it when they did. The world floated back into place, the trees rooted firmly on the ground and the clouds soaring high in the sky. And she leaned into him, into Derek.

“I killed him,” she whispered. “He begged me to, so I killed him.”

He held her, and didn’t let go.

“My eyes would be blue,” she stated some time later. “If I were a werewolf.”

“My mother, when my eyes turned blue,” Derek answered. “She told me that while they were different, they were still beautiful.”

“Are you calling me beautiful, Derek Hale?” Stiles snorted, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“I’m saying that I don’t love you any less because of this, just like my mother didn’t love me any less because of what I did. Blue eyes or not,” he murmured against her temple. “You’re still my Stiles.”

 

-&-

 

The pack gathered in the lacrosse field, milling about as they said their goodbyes. Scout and Scott shook hands, finally coming to an amicable agreement that they were both better than Stiles any day. Both Stileses rolled their eyes and punched their best friend for such accusations. Hugs were common, Lydia and Allison hugging themselves hard as they whispered inside jokes and reminders. Erica and Boyd were seized into hugs by Isaac and Cora, the Originals. They whispered that they’d miss each other. Deaton shook hands with each member of the parting pack, nodding as he slipped to stand off to the side, in case he was needed. Even the Dereks parted with a friendly grunt, although not much else. Stiles waited until her pack was ready to go, gathering them into a bunch away from the others.

She quickly drew the necessary lines in the grass with red paint, circling them in runes and symbols. She stepped onto the edge and began chanting the words on the photocopied page. A strong wind kicked up around her, tornadoing around her pack. It swept them up and in an instant was gone, leaving no trace that they’d ever been there. She smiled at her success and turned to the pack left behind.

“Thanks, you know, for helping get us home,” she said. Her male doppelganger broke away from the pack and smashed her into a hug, stumbling back a few steps from the sheer force of it.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he whispered. “And my pack’s lives. I can’t even begin to thank you, really. You’re welcome here whenever you happen to go parallel universe hopping.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, gripping his shirt in her fists.

Stiles released her and she was given a hug by each member of the Original pack, even Derek. Deaton smiled at her with a vague, kind nod in her direction.

“I guess. I guess this is goodbye,” she said. Stiles nodded. She nodded in return. She handed him the book. “In case you ever wanted to come parallel universe hopping.”

She stepped into the circle and the words fell automatically from her mouth, Latin pouring out. Wind didn’t sweep her away; she just ceased to exist for a moment. Pressure pushed against her chest, as if she’d been sucked into a vacuum, threatening to explode her. She gasped for air but found none and just when she thought she might die in this nothingness, she popped into existence, landing hard on her stomach on a lacrosse field, her packmates sprawled across one another in a heap of unconsciousness.

And she, too, joined them in their slumber.

 

-&-

 

Days, weeks, months, or maybe seconds passed, before Stiles peaked out, barely conscious. She was warm, too warm, but she couldn’t tell if that was from the overbearing sun beating down on them from above, or because of the massive space heater of a pack pile she’d found herself in the middle of. She groaned, and pushed her limbs out to stretch, groans doubling and tripling around her as the pack responded.

“What is,” she mumbled before a yawn stole her words.

“Wha’s a happ’n?” Isaac grumbled from beside her, turning to wrap himself around Cora.

“What is Sam Hell is going on here?” a familiar, angry, nonpack voice snapped, cutting through their snuggles. Stiles’ head whipped up and she tried to focus on the voice. “Do I even want to, Stilinski! What’s going on here?”

“Well, Coach,” she yawned, looking around.

“You know what, Stilinski. I do not want to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's that.  
> That's the end.  
> Keep an eye out for more Teen Wolf fics (I have a tumblr in case you didn't get that memo, and I totally shamelessly self-promote my writing there, packyourbagsrightnow.tumblr.com)
> 
> Until then,  
> DFTBA.


End file.
